Ground view of partially collapsed Champlain Towers South condo building. Rescuers and a rescue dog are working within the rubble to search for survivors.
An Alabama doctor and his brother, a Florida surgeon, are among those missing after a luxury condo building collapsed in Florida last week.
Gary Cohen, MD, a physiatrist and attending physician at Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, and his brother Brad Cohen, MD, a Miami orthopedic surgeon, were both inside the Champlain Towers South Condo when it collapsed in the early morning hours of June 24.
Gary, 59, and Brad, 51, each have two children.
“As a mother, wife, and grandmother, I want to implore everyone to pray for everyone missing, and my two sons, please bring them back,” their mother, Debra Cohen, said in a tearful plea on Miami’s Local10 news after a Hebrew prayer for her sons’ safety. “They are irreplaceable. The power of prayer cannot be underestimated.”
But more than a week after the incident, hope is running low. Brad’s wife, Soraya Cohen, told People magazine that if anyone could survive the collapse, it was her husband ― but she said the odds seem bleak so long after the collapse.
“But now it’s more than four and a half days — without water, without food and [possible] massive injuries — I no longer think there’s any chance he’s alive,” she told the magazine. “The thought that he’s not here anymore…. It’s cataclysmic. It’s just such a giant change of your life with no warning.”
Brad’s alma mater, the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, tweeted about the incident on June 29.
“@UofCincy College of Medicine sends prayers & hope to the family of Dr Brad Cohen, UCCoM Class of 1997. Dr Cohen & his brother, Dr Gary Cohen, are missing after the Florida condo collapse,” the tweet said.
According to the Associated Press, the death toll is now 20 people; 128 are still missing.
Gary was reportedly visiting his ill father in Florida and was staying with Brad, who had a condo on the 11th floor of the Champlain Towers.
Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center Director John Merkle released a statement expressing support for the Cohen family.
“Dr. Gary Cohen is one of our physicians and has worked many years providing care to our Veterans,” Merkle said. “He is part of the Tuscaloosa VAMC family and our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this incredibly difficult time.”
President Joe Biden told families to “never give up hope,” drawing on his own loss to comfort those still missing loved ones.
“The waiting, the waiting is unbearable,” he said in a video posted on Instagram.
“The people you may have lost — they’re gonna be with you your whole life,” he told the families. “A part of your soul, a part of who you are.”
Lindsay Kalter is a health freelance journalist who has held positions with Politico, the Boston Herald, and the American Heart Association. Aside from WebMD and Medscape, her work has appeared in publications including The Washington Post, Boston Globe Magazine and Business Insider.
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