Body of sixth and final victim recovered from Key Bridge wreckage Tuesday
Authorities found the body of José Mynor López, the final victim of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse to be pulled from the Patapsco River, Tuesday.
Six weeks to the day since a massive cargo ship struck a support beam, sending the bridge and a construction crew fixing its potholes into the river, the bodies of all six men killed in the collapse have been found. Crews continue to work on removing the bridge wreckage to clear the shipping channel and plan to use precision explosive charges to remove part of the bridge lodged on top of the ship.
Wilmer Lopez Orellana, an uncle of Lopez, said in Spanish that it was “good news” if it was true that teams had recovered his nephew’s body. Orellana said the family hopes that Lopez’s mother will bury him in Guatemala. He left behind four children.
The victims were part of a Brawner Builders crew working on the bridge when it was struck by the cargo ship Dali early in the morning of March 26. They were presumed dead later that day as operations shifted from rescue to recovery.
Divers previously recovered the bodies of Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, 26, originally from Guatemala; Maynor Suazo Sandoval, 38, originally from Honduras; Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, originally from Mexico; Carlos Daniel Hernandez, who was in his 20s and was originally from Mexico; and Miguel Ángel Luna González, 49 and originally from El Salvador.
Salvage divers located López on Tuesday before state police, transportation authority police and the FBI responded to the scene to recover his body, the unified command said in the release. López, 37, lived in Dundalk.
Melvin Ruiz is a former co-worker of Lopez’s who had kept in touch with Wilmer for updates about ongoing recovery efforts. Ruiz learned from a reporter Tuesday afternoon that his friend’s body had finally been found.
“I’m not happy, but at least they’re going to have somebody to send back to Guatemala,” Ruiz said. “It’s good for the family to have the body so they can say goodbye.”
Another Key Bridge worker returned home to his native country for a vigil Tuesday. The body of Maynor Suazo Sandoval arrived this week at the San Pedro Sula airport in Honduras. He will be buried Wednesday in his hometown of Azacualpa in the northwestern department of Santa Bárbara.
One of his older brothers, Martín, in Honduras described Suazo Sandoval as a generous person with a big heart. He was a “visionary man who wished to start his own business, but because he saw how few possibilities we have in our country, decided to immigrate to the United States, where he started working in construction,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said in Spanish.
La Prensa in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, contributed to this article.