SURFSIDE, Fla. – At 91 years old, Esther Gorfinkel remembers everything that happened on June 24, 2021, including the man who carried her out of Champlain Towers when the building collapsed.
“When is the last time you saw him?” Local 10 News reporter Jeff Weinsier asked.
“Oh, a long time, I(’ve) seen him once,” Gorfinkel said.
Albert Aguero and Gorfinkel reunited by phone — he in New Jersey, she at her apartment in Aventura.
They hadn’t seen each other in years.
“Oh my God, it is so great to see you,” Aguero said. “I mean, our lives will forever be linked together.”
They were together three years ago when the Champlain Towers collapsed in Surfside. He spotted her on a stairway trying to get out, threw her over his shoulder and carried her to safety.
“Thank you, I’m so glad to see you,” Gorfinkel said.
On June 24, 2021, she was in bed on the fifth floor inside Champlain Towers when there was a violent jolt. Her whole apartment began to shake.
“I feel like it was yesterday,” Gorfinkel said.
She put on a robe and began to go down the stairs, and was trapped by rubble until Aguero spotted her.
“I remember everything that happened that day,” she said.
“Do you think about it?” Weinsier asked.
“No, no, I don’t talk about it every day,” Gorfinkel said. “It’s impossible. You will go crazy.”
Gorfinkel had lined the walls of her Surfside apartment with awards and accolades for her work volunteering in the Jewish community and with cancer awareness.
After the collapse, the only two items recovered from the rubble were two of those awards, which she now has up in her Aventura apartment.
Gorfinkel had lived in the building for 40 years. Pictures of weddings, anniversaries, and keepsakes are all gone, but family members have replaced them with copies.
Today, as time has gone by, the pain remains. Gorfinkel lost many friends and neighbors in the tower that day.
“Many times I remember because one of the couples there belonged to my temple and sometimes the rabbi remembers them and talks about them,” she said.
A memorial is set for Monday morning at the collapse site, at 88th Street and Collins Avenue.
This year, Gorfinkel said she’s not up to attending.