Julio Cervantes Suarez, the lone member of his construction crew to survive the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, believed he would die as he fell toward the Patapsco River.
In the first interview Cervantes has given since the bridge collapsed at about 1:30 a.m. March 26, he told Tom Llamas of NBC News that he was submerged in water up to his neck before he escaped his work vehicle.
“I thanked God for family he gave me. I asked him to take care of my wife and kids. And I asked for forgiveness for everything I’ve done,” Cervantes told NBC in Spanish.
Cervantes was one of seven Brawner Builders construction workers repairing potholes when the cargo ship Dali struck the Key Bridge, sending the bridge and the workers into the water.
He told NBC on Wednesday that he watched as the water covered his coworkers and he called out to them by name.
“But no one answered me,” he said, according to NBC, which is scheduled to air the full interview on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” at 6:30 p.m. More will stream on “Top Story with Tom Llamas” at 7 p.m. on NBC News NOW.
Cervantes lost his brother-in-law, Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, and his nephew, Carlos Daniel Hernández, in the collapse. In his interview with NBC, Cervantes said that he considered Hernández as a son and that he watched him fall first from the bridge.
“If I had told him to come with me, maybe it would have been different. Maybe he would be here with us,” he said to NBC. “I relive it all the time, the minutes before the fall and when I’m falling.”
Cervantes told NBC that he has spent time with Fuentes’ children in the wake of the collapse.
“I see how much they miss their dad,” Cervantes said.
In April, attorney L. Chris Stewart of Atlanta-based Stewart Miller Simmons Trial Attorneys said Cervantes escaped after rolling down his work truck’s manual window. Cervantes, who can’t swim, clung to debris until he was rescued, Stewart said at a news conference.
A Maryland Transportation Authority Police boat rescued him about 25 minutes after the collapse, according to a May report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Cervantes was treated for a chest injury and released but still suffers pain in his chest and left leg, he told NBC.
Stewart also said in April that the workers were sitting in their vehicles during a break when the bridge collapsed and had “zero warning” of the Dali’s approach.
Stewart and attorney Justin Miller, who with Stewart is representing Cervantes and the families of four other victims, did not return phone calls seeking comment Wednesday afternoon.
Cervantes was the only worker to fall into the water that night and survive. A Maryland state inspector was on a different part of the bridge, and escaped the collapse on foot. He also has not spoken to the news media.
All six of the workers who perished were Latino: Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera and José Mynor López of Guatemala; Miguel Luna of El Salvador; Maynor Suazo Sandoval of Honduras.
Cervantes is from Mexico, as are his lost family members, Fuentes and Hernández.
It took nearly a month and a half for the bodies of all six of the workers to be recovered from the Patapsco River. Some of the families held memorial services locally, and repatriated their loved one’s body back to their home country in Latin America. The remains of others, including Luna, were kept in their adopted country: The United States.
Multiple agencies are investigating the March 26 collapse, including the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In a preliminary report in May, the NTSB revealed that the 984-foot container ship suffered two electrical blackouts while it underwent maintenance at the Port of Baltimore, just 10 hours before its fateful departure.
As it neared the Key Bridge, the ship experienced two blackouts in quick succession. Without power or steering, the massive ship drifted into a support column on the bridge, toppling most of the span.
One of the ship’s pilots called dispatchers, who assigned police officers to block both ends of the bridge, preventing cars from traveling onto it. But it is unclear whether the message to evacuate reached the construction crew.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore previously said that how first responders attempted to warn workers would be part of the NTSB investigation into the collapse. Moore said that one survivor said he was warned “audibly” to get off the bridge.
The City of Baltimore argued in a legal filing that the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., was negligent for allowing the vessel to leave port.
“None of this should have happened,” a claim filed by the mayor and City Council in Baltimore’s U.S. District Court said. “Even before leaving port, alarms showing an inconsistent power supply on the Dali had sounded. The Dali left port anyway, despite its clearly unseaworthy condition.”
Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd. have requested that the court clear them from liability or limit the financial damages in the case to the ship’s salvage value plus the revenue it stood to make from its cargo.
For Cervantes and the workers’ families, the first legal step is to file a claim within that limitation action, which is pending in Maryland’s federal court, before Sept. 24.
