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- Erick De Moura, a resident of the collapsed Florida condo, called it a "miracle" that he was not home at the time of the disaster.
- De Moura was planning to sleep home the night of the collapse, but his girlfriend, Fernanda Figueiredo, insisted that he stay over at her house.
- "That night was unusual. I was going to leave Fernanda's house to go home and take a shower and die," De Moura told The Washington Post.
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A resident of the Florida condo building that partly collapsed called it a "miracle" that he wasn't home at the time of the deadly disaster – and it was all thanks to his girlfriend.
Erick De Moura, who had been living in a rental apartment on the 10th floor of the Champlain Towers South complex in Surfside for the last three years, was planning to sleep home the night of the tragic collapse last week, but his girlfriend, Fernanda Figueiredo, insisted that he stay over at her house.
"That night was unusual. I was going to leave Fernanda's house to go home and take a shower and die," De Moura told The Washington Post in a report published Monday.
De Moura added, "For me, for Fernanda, this is definitely a miracle," explaining, "This is an act by God."
De Moura, a native of Brazil, told The Washington Post that he regularly spent his days at his apartment at the Champlain Towers South running his sales business.
On Wednesday, the day before the 1:30 a.m. Thursday collapse, De Moura worked from home before he brought a pot of Brazilian stew over to Figueiredo's house to watch the Brazil vs. Colombia soccer game with friends.
Later, the group played a game of soccer in the backyard and the night ultimately wound down after the ball landed in a nearby canal and De Moura jumped in to get it.
"People were getting into their cars and I said, 'I'm going to go home too,'" De Moura told The Washington Post, noting that he had a personal training session in the morning and did not have his clothes with him.
De Moura's girlfriend then told him to stay the night and tossed his wet clothes in the dryer.
He fell asleep around 1:30 a.m. - the same time a massive wing of his condo building crashed to the ground.
De Moura said he learned of the collapse when a doorman supervisor at the condo building texted him asking if he was OK.
Since the catastrophe that has left at least nine dead and roughly 150 people unaccounted for, De Moura said he feels like he's been "in a dream."
"I feel like I'm in a movie. I'm in a bad movie."