Who are the victims of the FIU bridge collapse now honored on campus?
Winsome Brown initially had planned to go on vacation on Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of her husband’s death.
But she rescheduled when her lawyers notified her that Florida International University would hold a ceremony that day to honor her husband, Navaro Brown, and the other five people who were killed after a 174-foot, 950-ton span of FIU’s unfinished pedestrian bridge over Southwest Eighth Street crumbled on March 15, 2018.
“It was very important for me to be there,” she said. “It was my first time going there since the bridge collapsed, so I think it was time for me to go there. But it was very hard. Everything came back to me, a lot of the memories.”
FIU unveiled a bronze sculpture Tuesday of Alexa Duran, the only FIU student killed in the catastrophe. The memorial includes five lamp posts representing the five other people who died: Brown, Alberto Arias, Brandon Brownfield, Rolando Fraga Hernandez and Osvaldo Gonzalez.
FIU spokeswoman Maydel Santana said the university invited the family members of all the victims to the event, but the university staff didn’t know if anyone else attended.
A native of Mocho, Jamaica, Navaro was 34 and was working for Structural Technologies VSL, one of the companies involved in the bridge construction. Winsome said authorities told her Navaro died at the hospital.
It was Brown’s first day working on the bridge, transferring the day before from another job in Orlando. Brown was on top of the bridge when it collapsed.
Winsome and Navaro had been married since 2010, but never had kids. His absence hasn’t gotten easier despite the passing of time, Winsome said: “It doesn’t matter what you do. The pain never goes away.”
It’s especially challenging on days like the anniversary of his death and his birthday. But she’s glad she spent Tuesday at the FIU main campus in West Miami-Dade looking at the memorial, which she said she appreciated and liked.
“He was funny,” she said, remembering him with a chuckle. “He was very supportive. He took very good care of me. He was also very dedicated to his job.”
“It’s very sad that he had to leave so early,” she added.
Five others killed when bridge collapsed
Brandon Brownfield
Brandon Brownfield, who worked as a crane technician for Maxim Crane Works, left behind three daughters, ages 10 months to 5 years at the time.
His wife, Chelsea Brownfield, posted about him on her Facebook page last Sept. 19, the day he would have turned 42: “Sometimes it feels like it’s been a million years since I’ve seen your face, and some days it feels like just yesterday I was calling you a nutcase,” she wrote.
She shared two photos of him — one of him holding a drink and another of a screenshot of a conversation between them in which she called him a “nutcase” because he sent a selfie wearing a helmet and standing on a beam 430 feet off the ground.
Alexa Duran
Alexa Duran was an 18-year-old FIU freshman when the bridge collapsed as she waited for a red light at the intersection of Southwest Eighth Street and 109th Avenue, where the bridge was being built.
She had borrowed her father’s Toyota 4Runner and was heading east on Tamiami Trail when the steel and concrete cascaded down, crushing her to death as she sat behind the wheel waiting for the light to turn.
The 7-foot bronze sculpture of her, commissioned by FIU and created by the artist Brian Hanlon, sits in a new plaza near the Green Library.
Osvaldo González and Alberto Arias
Osvaldo González, known as Ozzie, and Alberto Arias — two Cuban businessmen and life partners — died inside their white Chevy truck while they drove underneath the footbridge.
Together, they owned Classic Design Party Rental and had planned a trip to Cuba before they perished. They had been life partners for more than 20 years.
Rescue workers pulled Arias, 53, and González, 57, from beneath nearly 1,000 tons of concrete and steel two days after the bridge fell.
Rolando Fraga Hernandez
A native of San Jose de las Lajas, Havana, in Cuba, Rolando Fraga Hernandez, 60, lived in Miami with his wife, Ana Maria Oviedo Garcia, and his 15-year-old son, the Herald reported in 2018. He was a systems technician at ITG Communications.
A day before he died, he shared a Spanish quote on his Facebook page: “Nothing is forever. Coffee gets cold, people leave, time passes and people change.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 7:45 PM.
