As the death toll hits 90 in the painstaking search for victims of last month’s building collapse in Florida, the family of one teen pulled alive from the rubble have filed a lawsuit.
Jonah Handler survived the horrific collapse of the 12-story building but suffered lifechanging injuries.
Now relatives of the 15-year-old have filed a lawsuit claiming the building’s condo association knew the highrise was “at grave risk of collapse.”
While Jonah survived his mom died from the building collapse on June 24.
In the suit filed the condo association at Champlain Towers South in Surfside is accused of being aware of previous “widespread structural damage” of the building, according to a report in the Miami Herald.
The court papers allege that the condo association knew that the “building was structurally unsound, unsafe, and at grave risk of collapse” before the tragedy happened, as per the New York Post.
According to the suit Jonah’s mom Stacie Fang, who was the first victim to be identified, sat side by side with her son in his bedroom of their 10th-floor condo when the collapse happened.
“They free-fell to what they thought was certain death. Stacie and Jonah landed several floors below and miraculously were still alive,” the suit said.
First responders arrived at the scene and rushed them both to hospital where mom Stacie later died, according to the suit.
Meanwhile, the teen endured “pain and suffering, disability, disfigurement, mental anguish [and] loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life,” the suit says.
He also incurred “expenses of hospitalization, medical and nursing care treatment [and] aggravation or acceleration of pre-existing injury,” the papers state.
The lawsuit was filed by Neil Handler, the teen’s father, and Kevin Fang, his uncle.
I cannot imagine the pain this young boy is enduring right now, my heart goes out to him. Please share.
