BOISE, Idaho — Boise city officials held a news conference on Friday regarding the rescue response to Wednesday night's deadly hanger collapse near the Boise Airport.
Boise Fire Chief Mark Niemeyer praised the collaborative effort from all of the agencies involved in the rescue response, including Ada County Paramedics, Acute Rescue Boise, and Canyon County Paramedics.
Chief Neimeyer said BFD airport rescue firefighters were training that day and were on the scene immediately.
“That was a benefit to us because it got an immediate response,” said Neimeyer. “We were quickly about to create a plan to meet our priority mission to assess and get to the victims of this incident and get them out of the collapse zone and into treatment.”
RELATED: Three dead, multiple injured after building collapses at the Boise Airport
The three victims killed in the building collapse have been identified as 59-year-old Craig Durrant, 24-year-old Mariano Coc Och, and 32-year-old Mario Sontay Tzi.
RELATED: Victims identified from Wednesday night building collapse
The cause of death was deemed as traumatic blunt force injuries for all three victims, being underneath the structural collapse.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“As a responder, you do feel sadness because we knew we couldn’t effect a positive outcome for everyone. The call came in shortly before 5 PM on Wednesday evening for a collapsed building near the airport. A scene that Boise first responders do not see often, but they train for regularly. During Friday's press conference, Fire Chief Mark Neimeyer said Boise Fire has a team stationed at the airport ready to respond to any emergencies with any aircraft. Because of that, they were able to respond to the collapse within seconds.
“On this particular day at that particular time, those crews were out at the airfield doing training, so they were in that vehicle in that apparatus… so they were there immediately after the collapse happened,” says Neimeyer. But despite first responders' success in working collaboratively across multiple agencies, “Our mission is to save lives, and unfortunately, there are times due to circumstances beyond our control that we cannot meet that mission,” says Neimeyer. Many receiving peer support today following the tragic events.
We've also received a statement on behalf of Big D Builders that reads, in part, "Words cannot describe our pain and sorrow since Wednesday evening. We have lost family members and valued employees who were close personal friends. We are committed to working with OSHA and others to determine exactly why the structure failed and collapsed," says John Segale, on behalf of Big D Builders."
