A survivor of the building collapse in Iowa had to have her leg amputated in a desperate rescue, her wife has revealed.
Quanishia White-Berry – better known to friends as Peach – was pulled from the rubble in downtown Davenport Monday, and is now on the mend after losing the limb.
Not leaving her side in the time since is wife Lexus, who was forced to make the harrowing decision to allow first-responders to sever Berry’s leg to set her free.
The couple’s account comes as two men, Ryan Hitchcock and Branden Colvin, likely remain trapped under the wreckage of Sunday’s collapse, tentatively halting plans for a city-authorized demolition to address the building’s structural integrity.
With another collapse all but immanent, officials are now searching for the potential survivors – as several relatives slept outside a barrier prohibiting entry to the building Wednesday.
Among them was Colvin’s eldest son Brandon Jr – whose younger brother the day before was seen holding a sign protesting the city’s lack of action.
Quanishia White-Berry – better known to friends as Peach – was pulled from the rubble in downtown Davenport on Monday, and is now on the mend after losing her leg. Her wife made the difficult decision to allow first-responders to go through with the amuptation
The couple’s account comes as two men, Branden Colvin and Ryan Hitchcock, likely remain trapped under the wreckage – halting plans for a city-authorized demolition
Officials are now searching for the potential survivors ahead of another collapse. Colvin’s wife and son Brandon Jr. (sleeping at left) are seen here outside a barrier prohibiting entry to the building Thursday as they await answers from city officials as to their loved one’s fate
At the de facto protest site Thursday was Brandon Jr.’s younger brother – seen here holding a sign in protest of the city’s lack of action
‘Where is my dad?,’ a heartbreaking message etched on sign touted by Colvin’s youngest son read Wednesday evening, per a post published by his mother Devina.
An accompanying caption called for an update from city officials, who have yet to charge the building’s owner, Andrew Wold, with a crime. They have, however, slapped him with a $300 fine.
DailyMail.com was not immediately able to reach him for comment Thursday.
‘My heart hurts for my son,’ Devina wrote. ‘Please find his dad for him and his siblings. Give us answers.’
Also calling for increased transparency is Lexus Berry, who in the wake of the 116-year-old building’s unexpected collapse Sunday around 5 pm CDT was able to narrowly escape – only to realize wife Quanishia was nowhere to be seen.
Lexus recounted the couple’s near-death experience in an interview with a local newspaper this week, speaking at length about the disaster, and how it left her wife one of at least seven trapped in a mound of suffocating rubble.
‘There was nothing left but where I was standing,’ Lexus told a reporter with The Quad-City Times Sunday night, when Quanishia was still buried and her fate unknown.
Speaking to the paper, Lexus gave her first-hand account of how the collapse started – recalling how they noticed a crack in the ceiling while sitting in their fourth-floor apartment.
Within minutes, Lexus said she snapped a picture – immediately suspecting something was wrong. Both women picked up one of their two pet cats to leave, before the building came tumbling around them
In a telephone interview with the outlet Tuesday – while her beloved laid sedated in the hospital and on a ventilator – Lexus offered more insight, laying bare a harrowing rescue attempt that resulted in her losing a leg.
She recalled: ‘There was a lot of debris and things surrounding her and her legs were pinned down.
‘They were able to get one leg out, but the other leg in order to get her out, they had to amputate it.
‘It was a scene that I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget that image of the way she was trapped.’
In statements to local media, Berry’s wife, Lexus (seen at right with her wife) gave her first-hand account of how the collapse occurred – recalling how the pair noticed a crack in the ceiling while sitting in their fourth-floor apartment Sunday evening just before 5pm EDT
The building – first opened in 1906 – would then suddenly collapse, leaving multiple people, including Berry, trapped
Seen outside the collapse site, Branden Colvin Jr. said he feels helpless as he awaits answers from the city as to their planned course of action – telling reporters he would run into the wreckage himself if allowed
In the days since the collapse, more than 100 residents have gathered at the site to protests a panned demolition of the unstable building – which remains up in the air as Colvin and Hitchock remain missing
Protesters held signs saying ‘Find Them First’ and ‘Who is in the Rubble?’ Some used a megaphone to shout out the names of residents. The building had 53 tenants in about 80 units, the police chief said
A wardrobe and bedroom can be seen after the rear wall of the run-down building collapsed
Lexus – seen in photos marrying
expressed some frustration with the local authorities,
After the partial collapse, the city had announced plans to begin demolishing the building as early as Tuesday morning, but that was delayed after the rescue of Brooks.
Officials now say immediate demolition was never intended, but they did want to quickly stage the site for the tear-down.
The woman’s rescue prompted officials to see if they could safely enter and ensure others weren’t inside, but that is extremely difficult when the building could collapse at any time, they said.
‘This could be a place of rest for some of the unaccounted,’ Davenport Mayor Mike Matson said.
The city is trying to determine how to bring down what remains of the building while maintaining the dignity of people who may have been killed, he said.
Fire Marshal James Morris said explosives will not be used on the building, which is near other structures.
A relative of one of the missing pleaded at a news conference for people to understand that authorities want to control the tear-down without dumping more material onto the rubble.
‘I plead with our community to let the city do their job,’ the woman said, adding that her relative wouldn’t want any more lives put at risk.
The building is ‘unstable and continues to worsen,’ Morris said.
A structural engineer says searches should be avoided near the debris because more could collapse, and officials are considering that assessment before searching inside again.
Morris said removing the debris that is propping up the rest of the building could cause further collapse.
‘We’re very sympathetic to the possibility that there’s two people’ still left inside, Morris said as he fought back tears.
City officials said rescue crews escorted 12 people from the building shortly after a middle section collapsed at about 5pm on Sunday and rescued several others, including one person who was taken to safety overnight on Sunday.
‘There was a lot of screams, a lot of cries, a lot of people saying “Help!” when the building came down,’ Tadd Mashovec, a building resident, told KCCI-TV.
‘But that did not last, and two or three minutes, and then the whole area was silent.’
On Monday morning, Fire Chief Michael Carlsten said ‘no known individuals are trapped.’
The city then issued a statement saying that the owner was served on Monday with a demolition order and the process which was going to begin on Tuesday morning.
That was delayed after the rescue of the woman raised questions about the plans to demolish so soon.
‘We had no indications from any of the responders that we had, any of the canines, any of the tools at the time’ that there was anyone else left alive in the building, Morris said.
Emergency crews work the scene of a partial building collapse in Davenport on Sunday
Crews worked late into the night searching the rubble for survivors of the collapse
Fire crews who arrived at the scene said they found a water leak and a gas leak, though it is unclear whether either of those leaks led to the collapse
Police blocked off the downtown roads around the Davenport apartment building
It’s unclear what caused the collapse that left a gaping hole in the center of what was once the Davenport Hotel, a building listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Built in 1907, the brick, steel and concrete structure had been renovated into a mixed-use residential and commercial building.
Work was being done on the exterior at the time of the collapse, said Rich Oswald, the city’s director of development and neighborhood services.
Reports of falling bricks were part of that work, and the building’s owner had a permit for the project.
The fire marshal said on Tuesday that the owner had also hired a structural engineer who determined that the building was safe enough to remain occupied during the repairs.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk