BALTIMORE -- Years after immigrating to the U.S.and settling in the Baltimore area, Maria del Carmen Castellon was working toward a new chapter of her family’s American dream, hoping to expand her successful food truck business into a Salvadoran restaurant.Her husband, Miguel Luna, was right there beside her.
Years of welding and construction jobs had begun taking a toll on his health, but he kept working because he couldn’t afford to retire yet.He was filling potholes on an overnight shift when disaster struck.
A massive container ship lost power and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending Luna and five other men plunging to their deaths as the steel span collapsed into the water below.Several months later, Luna’s family is still struggling to construct a future without him.“Miguel had tireless energy, not because he wanted to but because he had to provide for our family,” Castellon said in Spanish, speaking through a translator at a news conference Tuesday.
“A wound has opened in my heart that will never heal.”She appeared alongside other victims’ relatives and attorneys to announce their plans to take legal action against the owner and manager of the Dali, arguing the companies acted with negligence and ignored problems on the ship before the March 26 collapse.A last-minute mayday call from the ship’s pilot allowed police officers to stop traffic to the bridge, but they didn’t have time to alert the road work crew.
Most of the men were sitting in their construction vehicles during a break and had no warning.One survived falling from the bridge by manually opening the window of his truck and climbing out into the frigid waters of the Patapsco River.Following the disaster, salvage divers worked around the clock to recover the victims’ bodies.
The underwater wreckage blocked the main channel into the Port of Baltimore for months, disrupting East Coast shipping routes and putting many longshoremen temporarily out of work.All six ...