Scaffold Fails 23 Floors Up at Terrazas on the Miami River
A rigging cord snapped on a swing stage at the twin-tower Miami River condo complex, stranding two workers before their own crew pulled them in.
Two construction workers were left dangling from a swing-stage scaffold at the 23rd and 24th floors of Terrazas, the twin-tower condo complex on the Miami River, after a rigging cord failed on September 24, 2026. Their own crew ran two additional suspended scaffolds up the tower face and pulled both men to safety before Miami Fire Rescue reached 1861 Northwest South River Drive. No one was hurt, and no one needed hospital transport. A resident who recorded the men holding onto the exterior wall posted the footage to the building’s neighbor chat while asking someone inside to open a window and help.
Why it matters
Swing-stage failures on occupied high-rises are a recurring hazard in South Florida’s building-maintenance pipeline, where towers built during the 2000s condo boom are cycling through the exterior and structural recertification work state law now requires past a set age. Terrazas, completed in 2010 by B Developments under Miguel Angel Barbagallo, fits that profile: an established Miami River tower, not a new build, undergoing facade or repair work when a rigging cord let go 23 stories up with no fall-arrest backup evident. That failure mode is the one safety inspectors flag most often on recertification-era scaffold jobs.
The numbers
- 2 workers stranded, at the 23rd and 24th floors
- 0 injuries reported and 0 hospital transports
- 2 backup suspended scaffolds the crew deployed to complete its own rescue
- 2010, the year Terrazas’ two towers, 21 and 27 stories, were completed
What’s next
Miami Fire Rescue arrived after the crew had already pulled the workers to safety, so no rescue-in-progress incident report has surfaced beyond the initial call. Neither the scaffold subcontractor nor the general contractor running the exterior work at Terrazas has been named in reporting so far. The American Developer could not confirm whether OSHA has opened an inspection into the rigging failure; no specific establishment record was located as of this writing, and none is cited here.
The incident adds to a string of construction-safety scrutiny across South Florida high-rise projects.