Mystery remains after Dearborn garage collapse that trapped man
New video shows rescue after structure collapse
New video shows rescue efforts after structure collapse traps man in Dearborn parking garage late Friday night.
(FOX 2) - Questions remain after a parking structure collapsed in Dearborn late Friday night.
The fire department chief questioned if the weather may have played a role in the damage to the garage that trapped one individual. However, no conclusion has been determined by the city.
The backstory:
Crews from around Wayne County and beyond responded to a collapse located at Outer Drive and Garrison around 8:15 p.m.
The man, who was uninjured after the collapse, was eventually rescued by firefighters and other members of the Western Wayne Urban Search and Rescue Technical Rescue Team.
Video from the incident showed crews moving concrete and hoisting up supports to keep the structure from falling any further.
Dearborn parking structure partially collapses, man rescued after being trapped
A part of a parking structure in Dearborn collapsed Friday night, trapping a man in the debris, police sources tell FOX 2.
What they're saying:
FOX 2 spoke to the assistant fire chief at Dearborn about the operation.
"Just hollering in - he was able to respond back, so that's how they were able to get the contact information and get ahold of him and not yell across the rubble," said Asst. Chief Kelly Meister.
"We train on cutting concrete. We train on crawling into these small spaces and installing these struts. It's really just 4-by-4's and paratech struts and they're rated to support certain amounts of weight depending on which strut you select. And they all have different lengths and we have different rules we follow with the struts as far as how many we can use at a time," she added.
Man survives parking structure collapse
According to the Dearborn Fire Department, the man was under thousands of pounds of concrete, and he miraculously walked away without a scratch. The parking garage on Monday was nearly empty, surrounded by a fence, but on Friday night, fire crews were everywhere.
Dearborn Fire Chief Joe Murray says the call came in around 8:45 p.m.
A special ops team rescued him, pulling him out from under 40,000 pounds of rubble.
He was out by 10:30 p.m. on Friday. Murray told FOX 2 that the single-digit temperatures were complicated in their response.
"It was very cold. And actually where we had to access the vehicle was on the slope was on a hill. And it was a lot of snow on there. So a lot of slipping and sliding. But firefighters are trained to overcome," said Murray. "Our building officials were hoping they’ll be able to give us an answer soon. They’re actually out on the site right now. They’ve been out since the night of the event doing assessments, discussing a plan of action. So I don’t exactly know the exact reason for the collapse, but obviously there was a collapse. Weather could play a lot with it too. We’ve got tremendous amount of snow, water, freezing, thawing and a lot of wind."
The Source: An interview with fire officials and new video were cited for this story.