Lou Capozzola-Imagn Images
Former Major League Baseball player Tony Blanco was among the 221 people that are now reported to have died in the collapse of the roof at Jet Set, one of the most popular nightclubs in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. An additional 189 people were reportedly rescued from the carnage.
Former MLB player Henry Blanco, who was at the club, was among the survivors. Another one of the people who survived the disaster was Esteban German, a former Major League Baseball player who spent time with the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland A’s. However, according to German, he would likely be among the dead if it were not for the 43-year-old Blanco.
According to MLB insider Hector Gomez, Esteban German has revealed that he was returning to his table from the bathroom at the nightclub when Tony Blanco pushed him out the way to avoid being hit by a part of the ceiling that was collapsing. Blanco died just seconds later.
The roof collapse at the Jet Set nightclub also claimed the lives of former Major League Baseball pitcher Octavio Dotel and Nelsy Cruz, the governor of the northwestern province of Montecristi and sister of seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz.
The New York Times reports that the body of the merengue singer who was performing at the time of the roof collapse, Rubby Perez, was pulled out of the debris Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez said that he still had family members trapped in the club’s wreckage.
“Our hearts are with you, and we all are affected,” Martinez said. “I still have family members that are still in the rubble and we don’t know what happened to them but we just want to be strong, like we have always been. We’re all sad, we’re all affected by the tragedy. We are a country that prays a lot and remains united all the time, so I just hope that everybody has the same courage.”
Juan Manuel Mendez, the director of the emergency operations center, said Wednesday night that they had “exhausted all reasonable possibilities” of finding anyone alive in the rubble, but that they would continue the excavation efforts. “We are not abandoning anybody,” he said.