How An Israeli Military Search Team Helped Recover 81 of the 97 victims from the Champlain Towers South Condo Collapse site in Surfside

When Lt. Col. Golan Vach, commander of the Israeli Defense Forces’ National Rescue Unit, located a man’s ring while searching the debris field of the collapsed Champlain Towers South in Surfside, he knew immediately to whom it belonged.

He knew, because he had met with families of the scores of missing people. He had studied photographs of the missing, learned about their possessions — a necklace with a heart pendant, a gold watch, a blue table.

He had learned about the habits of each potential victim and even knew in which room each likely would have been during the collapse.

And, amid unimaginable tangles of rebar jutting out from a sea of concrete that was once their homes, he knew precisely where each victim would be located.

He personally found 20. His team, he said, helped the U.S. rescue teams that found another 81 victims by the time the last IDF member departed Surfside on July 11.As of Friday, July 23, 97 people in all had been recovered.

“This is the way we were working, like detectives,” Vach said. “You have these stupid, simple, brilliant signs. You dig here, and you will find the people you are looking for. And it worked.”