ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. (WSVN) — A two-story deck collapsed at a vacation rental in Florida, leaving more than a dozen people injured and sending eight of the victims to the hospital, officials said.
Crime scene tape surrounded the property in St. Johns County near Jacksonville where the incident happened Sunday.
St. Johns County Fire Rescue units responded to the scene along South Ponte Vedra Boulevard, at around 12:30 p.m.
To the right of the house, the collapsed deck could be seen, and that’s where, firefighters said, several people were hurt.
“We evaluated a total of 13 patients on scene and ended up transporting eight of them,” said St. John’s County Fire Rescue spokesperson Chris Naff.
Officials said everyone was already off the deck when crews arrived.
“There was nobody trapped by the debris. We didn’t have to rescue anybody out from underneath the debris,” said Naff.
Nearby homeowners were intially confused when they heard the commotion.
“We weren’t sure what happened, so to hear that the deck collapsed is pretty insane,” said nearby homeowner Nicholas Recco.
Others pointed to concerns about how that rental property was maintained.
“But that house is rented quite a bit, quite a bit. There’s always different people on the beach,” said nearby homeowner, Frank Recco. “A lot of these houses are not maintained. I guess that’s the problem [with] a lot of these rental properties.”
The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.
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