Videos show piling rig’s collapse, flames shooting out of crushed BMW in Miami’s Brickell area

A woman and three men were recovering on Tuesday after surviving the collapse of an 85-foot piling rig on Monday morning in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. Miami Fire Chief Robert Hevia said the three men were working shortly after 8 a.m. on Monday at the construction site of Citadel’s 58-story building at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive. A 47-year-old man was injured while working as an operator in the cabin of the piling rig, used for heavy drilling. Hevia said he managed to jump out of the cabin as the rig was tipping over. The two other men were injured and trapped after the rig’s lower mast and drill pipe crushed a temporary container office set up at the site by Related Companies, the developer. Hevia said fire rescue personnel cut through the steel conex box to free the two men, aged 27 and 29. The woman was driving a white BMW sports utility vehicle southbound on Brickell Bay Drive when she saw the rig coming down between Southeast 12th and 13th streets. Hevia said she “was able to pull her car in reverse,” so the rig landed on the hood, the engine caught on fire, and she escaped with minor injuries through the back of the BMW.“The flames were shooting up 30 feet in the air,” Christina Lardon, a witness, said. Fire rescue personnel took the woman to HCA Florida Mercy Hospital and the three men to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center.“It was shock and awe and fear,” Lardon said. The rig also damaged two other parked cars. Hevia said a mitigation crew worked on a fuel spill. Teams with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Miami-Dade County Unsafe Structures responded to the construction site. Watch aerial video of the site