BALTIMORE -- It was just another overnight shift for Damon Davis, a road construction inspector who was supervising repairs on Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge — until the deck beneath his feet started crumbling.He ran for his life and, miraculously, made it to safety moments before the bridge collapsed into the water below.“You can visualize, as he is coming forward, the bridge is collapsing behind him,” said Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy, whose firm is representing Davis in a liability case against the owner and manager of the Dali, the massive container ship that veered off course and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns in March.The attorneys held a news conference Thursday to announce their upcoming claim.Six members of the road crew whose work Davis was inspecting that night died in the collapse and another narrowly survived falling from the bridge.Their job that night was filling potholes on the bridge deck.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 crew.
The workers were on break when disaster struck.Most were sitting in their construction vehicles and had no warning about the impending collapse.The man who survived the fall, Julio Cervantes Suarez, was able to manually roll down the window of his rapidly sinking truck and climb out into the frigid water of the Patapsco River, where he clung to a piece of floating debris until he was rescued by first responders.Davis, meanwhile, was headed back to his car when he realized what was happening.
He ran toward one end of the bridge and leaped to safety.“His car went down with the bridge, and he took a giant leap,” attorney Ron Richardson said.“He just kept running for his life.”Davis is still struggling to overcome the trauma he experienced, his attorneys said.
They said he’s mourning the loss of his colleagues and processing the shock of his own near-death experi...