HEARTBREAKING

Trapped Woman Heard Pleading for Help From Surfside Wreckage Is Finally Identified

Rescuers heard her voice in the rubble, but were unable to save her. They now believe she was a 36-year-old music exec visiting from California.

A woman heard making her final pleas for help from within the rubble of the collapsed Surfside towers in 2021 may have finally been identified. The woman, whose voice was just barely audible to rescuers at the scene of the Champlain Towers South collapse that June, was trapped so deep within the rubble she was unable to be saved. But a new report by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has at least given her a name: Officials say she was Theresa Velasquez, a 36-year-old music executive who was in town visiting her parents from California. Her parents, Julio and Angela, were also killed in the disaster. Theresa Velasquez had reportedly just arrived a few hours before the tower fell. Her brother, David, told CBS Miami he believes the fire officials’ identification is accurate. “There is no way to know 100 percent, but it seems like the logical conclusion,” he was quoted saying, adding that “I trust what is in that report and the people that made that determination.” The report, written by Miami Dade Deputy Fire Chief Ray Jadallah, rebuts earlier claims that the “voice in the rubble” belonged to a 14-year-old girl.