Trauma Of The FIU Bridge Collapse Haunts Survivor Who Watched His Friend Die

WLRN Public Media | By Alex Harris

Published April 2, 2018 at 5:38 PM EDT

Richard Humble, a survivor of the FIU bridge collapse who filed a negligence suit last week, speaks about his experiences during a press conference at his lawyer's office.

On the drive home from his parents’ home on Easter Sunday, Richard Humble had to pull over.

He was panicking. It was like it was happening all over again. One moment he was riding shotgun with his best friend Alexa Duran, and the next he was trapped under a twisted hunk of car crushed by Florida International University’s brand new 950-ton pedestrian bridge. He was able to escape the car. Duran did not. At 18, she was the youngest of the six victims of the collapse.

It took Humble 20 minutes before he could drive again on Easter Sunday, an activity that these days leaves him full of anxiety and dread. He said he has flashbacks at least every other day, and he’s had to drop all but one of his FIU classes.

“There’s not a single day that I don’t think about it,” he told reporters at a press conference Monday to discuss the negligence lawsuit he and his family filed Thursday.

Even on the drive to the Coral Gables offices of his law firm, he said, he passed under an arch and had a physical reaction.

“Something in me was like, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t risk it,’” he said. “All it needs is a trigger and it’s out of my hands.”

The physical reminders of that terrible day — a fractured back, knee and neck issues — have mostly faded. The memories will never leave him.

Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.