At Least 1 Person Killed, 6 Injured After Crane Collapses on Dallas Apartment Building
At least one person was killed and six were injured after a crane collapsed on a Dallas apartment complex Sunday, destroying multiple units and an entire parking garage.
The crane fell into the Elan City Lights complex around 2 p.m. amid a large storm that brought winds of up to 70 mph, Dallas-Fire Rescue Department spokesperson Jason Evans tells PEOPLE.
The lone fatality was a woman in her apartment building, according to the Associated Press, while six injured patients were transported to local hospitals.
Baylor University Medical Center spokesperson, Deke Jones, tells PEOPLE that one patient is in critical condition, one is in serious condition, and another was treated and released.
The three other injured patients were reportedly taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where their conditions remain unknown.
Dallas firefighters sent rescue dogs to the scene to look for additional injured and missing people, though no one was found, Evans said.
The crane that fell was located at a construction site for a new apartment building and grocery store, according to the Washington Post.
“This is a really challenging situation in the sense that I cannot personally recall that we’ve had a crane collapse that involved an already inhabited building,” Evans reportedly said.
The cause of the collapse remains under investigation, though Evans said it’s a “strong possibility” that the massive winds played a role, according to the AP.
The crane was operated by Bigge Crane and Rigging, which has been cited for at least 17 OSHA violations since 2013, the Post reports, though some of the citations were contested.
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“Our thoughts and prayers are with those directly impacted by this incident, their families and loved ones, and with those who suffered property damage,” Randy Smith, Bigge Crane and Rigging’s corporate counsel, said in a statement.
Footage of the collapse was captured on video by Dallas residents who shared it to social media.
One video shows the crane in the distance slowly topple over as horrified onlookers gasp in shock.
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Abbey Kearney, who lives in the Elan City Lights complex, told CNN she was enjoying a sunny day at the pool when the storm rolled in unexpectedly.
“It just got dark very quickly and the wind picked up something fierce,” she said. “[The crane] just sliced through the building … like a hot knife through butter. It went from the fifth floor to, from what I can tell, the third floor.”
Kearney said she and her husband then headed to the decimated parking garage to check on their vehicle.
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“We just saw cars everywhere,” she said. “I don’t even know how to describe it. There were cars that were vertical, there was cars from maybe the eighth floor all the way down into the third floor where we park.”
The incident comes two months after four people were killed in a crane collapse on Google’s new campus in Seattle.
