AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
When a Florida beachfront condo collapsed five years ago, rescuers saved only three people from the rubble. Two were in the same family, and they're trying hard to rebuild a life in the face of tragedy. NPR's Debbie Elliott brings their story from Surfside. And before we begin, please know there is contemplation of self-harm in this report.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Nine-one-one dispatchers started fielding frantic emergency calls just after 1 a.m. on June 24, 2021.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes. I'm in Champlain Tower. Something's going on here. You got to get us out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: What is the address?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Champlain Towers.
UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: OK. You're in your apartment right now?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes, but half the building's gone.
ELLIOTT: Calls were coming from the part of the building that was still standing. Angela Gonzalez lived on the other side in Unit 904 of Champlain Towers South.
ANGELA GONZALEZ: It just seemed like the world was just crumbling down, and I just remember screaming at the top of my lungs, run.
ELLIOTT: She was asleep in the condo with her husband, Edgar, and her teenage daughter, Deven, when she heard a strange, loud noise.
A GONZALEZ: There was just this instinctiveness to just grab Deven. I think the hard part for people to comprehend is that everything that I'm saying - sorry - (crying) happened in a matter of six seconds. You know, there's no time to think about what you're going to do.
ELLIOTT: Angela dragged Deven out of the bedroom. As they were running, Deven says they felt what seemed like an explosion.
DEVEN GONZALEZ: The floor caved in, and then we fell.
ELLIOTT: She blacked out. Deven Gonzalez was 16 years old at the time and a competitive high school volleyball player.
D GONZALEZ: When I woke up, it was just chaos - rubble, everything around me, people screaming. And then I tried to get up, and then I couldn't.
ELLIOTT: Her left leg was crushed and bleeding, the broken femur bone protruding from her body. She remembers hearing a faint voice.
D GONZALEZ: Instinctively, I just yelled, Mom. And my mom responded. I kept asking if she was OK, where was she, but then she would stop responding, and then I would get really scared.
ELLIOTT: Deven banged pots and pans to get the attention of rescuers. And when they found her, she insisted that they had to get to her mom, that she was right nearby. The Gonzalezes are reliving their dramatic rescue, talking around the dining table of their new one-story detached home on a dead-end street in Miami Shores. A black cat crisscrosses the tabletop.
D GONZALEZ: And that's Binx. He was in the condo also. We got him, like, two weeks later.
TAYLER SCHEINHAUS: Hello.
ELLIOTT: Angela's other daughter and Deven's sister, Tayler Scheinhaus (ph), has come over.
SCHEINHAUS: Tayler. Nice to meet you.
ELLIOTT: Hi, Tayler.
Tayler, who had gone out that night, remembers rushing to the scene, where an officer said no one on the side of the condo that collapsed would survive.
SCHEINHAUS: I'm kind of just been told that, like, no one made it. And I'm thinking, like, what am I supposed to do, like, now?
ELLIOTT: An aunt called and told her Deven was in the hospital about to undergo emergency surgery. Their parents were considered missing at that point. So Tayler, 24 years old at the time, had to make decisions for Deven's care.
D GONZALEZ: You got there before I got rushed in...
SCHEINHAUS: I did...
D GONZALEZ: ...To surgery. Yeah.
SCHEINHAUS: And I was just telling you, like, everything's going to be OK. And you were asking me about Mom and Dad. And I said, Deven, if you're here, then they're going to make it here at some point.
ELLIOTT: Later, she found her mother elsewhere in the hospital. She'd been listed as a Jane Doe.
SCHEINHAUS: She was in a coma, and she had the brace on her neck, a brace on her arm. I was just crying saying that, like, I'm taking care of Deven, and everything's going to be OK, and Dad's going to be found. And she still had rubble in her hair.
A GONZALEZ: It breaks my heart. Sorry.
ELLIOTT: Angela Gonzalez.
A GONZALEZ: No parent wants their child to be put in that position. It's a lot for someone, 24, to have this burden of making certain decisions and then, at the same time, have no idea if Mom and Dad are going to make it.
ELLIOTT: Edgar Gonzalez didn't make it. His body was pulled from the rubble two weeks after the collapse. A lawyer, he was 45 and remembered at his memorial service as a devoted family man. The family has struggled since to figure out how to move forward - recovering from injuries, both physical and emotional; rebuilding a home - again physically because they'd lost everything, but also mentally because the family dynamic had changed.
A GONZALEZ: They're coming in expecting Mom, and I'm still completely traumatized. I'm petrified. I feel like I was almost in a childlike state of mind.
ELLIOTT: This is when Deven needed her most. She'd gone back to high school within months and later learned her volleyball career was over because of her injuries.
D GONZALEZ: I'm coming back home, and, like, my mom's not OK. And I don't hold that against her, but, like, she was a very, like, hands-on, involved mom. Sometimes even a helicopter mom.
SCHEINHAUS: She for sure was a helicopter mom.
D GONZALEZ: There would be times that I would just come home, and, like, my mom just was not there.
SCHEINHAUS: It was like a zombie. A zombie.
D GONZALEZ: It was like a zombie or like a shell.
A GONZALEZ: I couldn't even comprehend what they needed from me at times. But then, at the same time, the only thing I had was being their mom, and nothing was going to take that away from me.
ELLIOTT: Angela is a mental health counselor and says it's only been this year that she's felt attuned to her girls' needs. That first year was the hardest. At times, Angela had dark thoughts about ending her life, and Tayler was there to talk her through. Tayler says she found herself drinking to mask the pain.
SCHEINHAUS: My whole life also changed. And, yes, I didn't fall out of the building, but I'm the only one that's day to day taking care of my mom and my sister and also grieving a whole life and parent.
ELLIOTT: Her sister, Deven, is digging a little deeper at this five-year mark to acknowledge what she survived. She's grown weary of being an example of resiliency.
D GONZALEZ: I've never just been OK. I've never taken a break. I've never just stopped to tell myself, wow, what happened was really effed up, and I'm not OK from it.
ELLIOTT: The women did each receive part of a $1.2 billion class action settlement. It's helped them to create this new home. But Deven says that doesn't mean they've been made whole.
D GONZALEZ: It made us a little more comfortable, but at the end of the day, no amount of settlement money or anything will take away what we have suffered.
ELLIOTT: Angela is still recovering from her multiple injuries. She recently had a hip surgery and says her pelvis is wired together with metal. Each of them has found a way to grieve and to try to get their lives back on track. Deven has started college, Tayler is living on her own now, and Angela has remarried.
A GONZALEZ: I don't think it - we're ever going to fully be OK, and I think it's OK. I do remind them a lot, like, you wanted Mom back, so here I am. So let's get going. You know, stop being so sad today. Let's go do some self-care. And Deven's like, oh, God (laughter).
ELLIOTT: It's about acknowledging their tremendous loss, she says, but also being able to step into the future.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Surfside, Florida.
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RASCOE: Our story was co-reported and produced by NPR's Marisa Penalosa. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
(SOUNDBITE OF LIGHT OF SUN'S "DAWNING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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