Crane topples onto car in Miami’s Brickell, four hurt

A crane collapsed at a construction site in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood on Monday morning, toppling onto a passing car and injuring four people, officials said. The collapse set the car on fire and prompted a technical rescue effort to free two workers trapped inside a storage container on the site.

Miami Fire Chief Robert Hevia said at a news conference Monday that the collapse occurred shortly after 8 a.m. All four people hurt , the car’s driver, two construction workers and the crane operator , had minor injuries.

“I’ve been on the fire department for 28 years, when you see the scene, it’s impressive,” Hevia said. “The fact that we had four victims, and they were all able to be extricated or self-extricate themselves with minor injuries is a remarkable day for them.”

Hevia said a woman driving next to the construction site saw the crane begin to fall.

“To be able to see the crane falling, pull the car in reverse and pop out of the back while the car’s on fire, really incredible,” he said.

The crane also crushed two unoccupied parked cars but fell on a conex box, a storage container holding two construction workers, Hevia said. The crane operator managed to jump out as the crane was tipping over.

The two trapped workers and the crane operator were taken to a nearby trauma center, Hevia said. The driver was taken to a different hospital. Officials haven’t identified the injured.

“It was a very complex scene with a fire that was occurring; our crews were putting out the fire and our technical rescue team working simultaneously to cut through the conex box, the construction box, and they were able to successfully extricate the two victims,” Hevia said. He confirmed all other workers at the site were accounted for.

The crane was a piling rig, a machine that shares the same base as a traditional crane but has an upper section designed to drive columns deep into the ground to support large structures, Hevia said. The collapse is under investigation.