Former New York Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia has claimed he narrowly escaped death in Wednesday’s devastating earthquakes in Venezuela thanks to “divine intervention.”
According to Dominican newspaper Diario Libre, Meija, 36, told Dominican sports radio show Manana Deportiva that his life was saved after an elevator in the Caracas hotel in which he was staying delivered him to the wrong floor.
The baseball star explained that he had just finished a workout in the resort’s gym and was returning to his room when the first quake struck.
“I was in the gym area,” he said. “And at that moment, I took the elevator to leave. In fact, I had pressed number six, which was where my floor was.
“But… I think it was God because instead of going up, it went down to the basement.”
By being taken down instead of up to floor six, Meija was able to flee the building just 40 seconds before it crumbled to the ground.
“The door opened directly into the lobby,” he said. “That’s when I came out and the building started to collapse.
“With the agility I have, I helped an elderly gentleman. I was able to drag him away, take him with me. I think only he and I [survived], the others are still there, trapped under the rubble.”
Mejia said he lost all of his possessions in the crush and has not been able to return home to the Dominican Republic because all flights out of Venezuela have been temporarily suspended.
The pitcher now plays for La Guaira Delfines of the Venezuelan Major League, a team located 15 miles north of the Venezuelan capital.
La Guaira was one of the areas hardest-hit by the disaster, which began late afternoon Wednesday when a huge 7.2-magnitude quake struck around 100 miles west of Caracas, followed by a second 7.5 blast just 39 seconds later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
At least 235 people have been confirmed dead in the tragedy and more than 40,000 remain missing as rescue workers battle to free more survivors.
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez has declared a state of emergency.
Meija played for the Mets from 2010 to 2015 but was banned for life from Major League Baseball after a failing drug test for the third time in February 2016 when he tested positive for an anabolic steroid.
He was granted a discretionary reprieve after two years and briefly played for the Boston Red Sox in the minors in 2019 before reviving his career in Mexico.
