“I was sitting on the deck up there, and I heard this noise, so I turned and looked and saw the whole thing caving in,” Joann Debito, a resident of the Newport Hotel across the street, told The Press of Atlantic City. “I saw two women running and screaming. It was horrible.”
Personnel attending the New Jersey Firemen’s Association Convention rushed to the scene, just hours after its parade through Wildwood, a resort city on the New Jersey coast.
Upwards of eight members of the Branchville Fire Department and their family members were injured in the collapse but all but one were released from area hospitals, the Sussex County Fire Chief’s Association said.
Nineteen patients, including three children, were treated and released from Cape May Regional Health System, a spokesperson told WPVI-TV. Twenty-one people initially were treated at the hospital.
In addition, at least one additional person was taken to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City.
