JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It has been one year since the parking garage at Ascension St. Vincent's Riverside partially collapsed. It happened just after Noon on Sept. 12, 2023. People inside the hospital reported hearing a loud boom. A portion of the third floor of parking garage collapsed into the second floor. No one was hurt, but several cars were crushed.
Justin Bessent and Jake Blanton were first on scene that day. They arrived to a mess of concrete and cars during one of the busiest times of the day for a hospital. Dozens of cars were parked in the garage at the time. Bessent recalls seeing someone's trunk open and a pair of shoes nearby.
"Obviously, somebody had come out and opened their car and they went back in, and it's just a obscene stroke of luck that they weren't there," Bessent said.
Immediately, their training kicked in. Neither men had worked on a building collapse like this one, but they knew what to do. Bessent took command first and assessed the damage. Blanton was there by his side.
"It was kind of one of those scenarios where you don't know how compromised the second floor was with the third floor falling on top of it. So we're going up there to make an initial investigation, and I kind of stopped the whole rush. Everybody wants to help and do something. And I started thinking about, you know, how compromised is that second floor?," Blanton said.
As more personnel arrived, the men were able to focus on more specific jobs.
"While we're trying to see if there's any victims that we can, immediately, command is getting all kinds of different crews because we have so many people responding to help evacuate places, make a collapse zone," Blanton said.
One year later, Blanton and Bessent are relieved no one was hurt. They are now grateful for the lessons they learned that day, including the reminder to slow down in those situations.
"We get tunnel vision a lot of times as firefighters. We have one specific job, either go rescue somebody, go put out a fire, go help somebody that's in need. So it's good to see the scene. Take a step back, say hold on, let's make sure none of us are gonna get hurt in this process and actually make sure we do a good job," Bessent said.
While no one was hurt, the magnitude of the dangers they face did not escape them. Still, they chalk it up to being part of the job.
"We always have fear of whether something is going to go wrong. But part of the job is being able to put that to the side and figure out the safest way to do something that you can get the job done. And so that's what we were just trying to do," Bessent said.