SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. — Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is now representing the families of three people who died in the Sapelo Island gangway collapse over the weekend.
On Tuesday, Crump held a press conference with survivors and families of those who died, calling for accountability.
Seven people were killed when a gangway leading to a ferry gave way last Saturday.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said at least 20 people were on the dock and fell into the river.
“It is a structural failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds,” Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon said over the weekend.
In his speech, Crump called the disaster an infrastructure failure and demanded that leaders on a local and national level push for answers regarding when the gangway was last inspected and what its weight restrictions were to explain how such a tragedy could have occurred and whether anyone is responsible.
"Everyone who was on that gangway has psychological trauma," Crump stated. "They all saw people die."
Those who died were all older than 70 years old. Two of them were from the Atlanta area.
Families who spoke remembered parents and grandparents who perished in the muddy water.
Yet, survivors themselves gave much of the morning's most powerful sound.
"I wish this was a dream that didn't come true," one woman said tearfully, recounting the experience of being pulled from the water. "Nobody knows what it is like to go under the water, and then somebody wraps you up and brings you out."
Another survivor, Regina Brinson, recalled being pulled with about ten others away from the ferry by the powerful currents. In the moment's chaos, her uncle grabbed onto her shirt, causing her to be pulled under the water.
"I thought, 'Oh god, I'm going to die,'" she said, tears flowing as she recounted the horror. " I had to take his fingers one by one and peel them off my shirt...I floated back to the top, saw his face, and thought, 'Oh my god, what did I do? What did I do?'... It took everything out of me just to make it."
Regina's mother spoke following her daughter's haunting story, remembering the shock herself.
"I couldn't believe what I saw...I just stood there looking down in that water and saw all those people," she recounted tearfully before remembering the terror of not knowing if her daughter, brother, and close friend had made it out safely.
On Monday, the damaged gangway was taken to a secured facility where it will be examined as part of an investigation into what happened. The ferry dock also resumed operations on Monday.
Icy White of Atlanta recorded video of the immediate aftermath on her cellphone and shared it with The Associated Press. It shows tourists and island residents jumping into action to rescue imperiled strangers and render aid to the injured in a remote location with few trained first responders initially on-site.
“There was no EMS that was there,” said Darrel Jenkins, White’s cousin. “We were the EMS.”
White’s family was among hundreds visiting the isolated Georgia barrier island Saturday for a fall festival spotlighting the history and culture of its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants. The celebration gave way to tragedy when the gangway collapsed, sending seven visitors to their deaths.