Cervantes Suarez after his car sank into the water He said he couldn’t open the door and had to manually roll down the window to escape. They climbed out of the wreckage onto concrete slabs and waited for rescuers.
One of the two survivors, Cervantes Suarez, detailed the tragic incident in his first interview with NBC News, which aired the footage on Wednesday.
In an interview, Cervantes Suarez recalled searching for other workers.
“I started calling out to them, calling each one by name,” he said in Spanish, “but no one answered.”
He said his nephew, Carlos Daniel Hernandez, who he considered like a son, was the first to fall.
Cervantes Suarez told NBC: He didn’t think He will survive the fall.
“I thanked God [the] “I’m grateful for the family he gave me,” he said. “I asked him to take care of my wife and children, and I asked for forgiveness for everything I’ve done.”
Cervantes-Suarez told NBC she still has physical pain. He told Hernandez to get back in his car and rest.
“If I had asked him to come with me, maybe things would have been different. He might have been here with us,” Cervantes Suarez told the network.
Federal investigators are still probing the cause of the accident, which halted much of the Port of Baltimore’s trade and raised questions about whether federal and state authorities are prepared to prevent similar disruptions. The FBI is conducting a separate criminal investigation into whether the Dali’s crew knew about serious systems problems before they set sail.
Cervantes Suarez said he wanted all those responsible, including the family of his brother-in-law Hernández Fuentes, to “pay compensation for the damage they have done,” but told NBC it would be impossible to replace what his family and others lost overnight.
“Because we know that money can’t buy a hug from a father or a son,” he said.
