In the Rubble of a Fallen Building, He Rescued a 2-Year-Old

Miguel Tigsilema was on his third day working at a construction site in Brooklyn, leveling dirt in a corner of the pit with his shovel, when he heard what sounded like enormous tree trunks breaking in half.

He turned to look behind him and saw the building next to the site tumbling down. He took off running, his helmet flying off as he raced for the street. He tripped and fell, the dust of the collapse blinding and choking him.

Mr. Tigsilema got up and scrambled to the street, where he screamed at passers-by to call for help.

He paused, grateful to be alive.

He looked back down at the pit and thought of his fellow workers who might be trapped in the rubble.

“I had just been thinking of saving myself,” Mr. Tigsilema, 35, a father of three who was born in Ecuador, said in an interview. “God gave me the strength and courage to go back.”

That was when he heard a woman’s muffled screams.

“Help me,” he remembered her calling out. “Save my children.”

He could see a tiny hand through the debris. Mr. Tigsilema and other workers from the site began to dig with their hands.

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