Former Mets pitcher survives Venezuela hotel collapse

A former Major League Baseball pitcher survived the catastrophic collapse of his hotel in Venezuela this week, crediting a last-second change in an elevator's direction with saving his life. Jenrry Mejia, who played for the New York Mets, was inside the Hotel Eduards in La Guaira when powerful back-to-back earthquakes struck the region on Wednesday, June 24, 2026.

The seismic event, described by the U.S. Geological Survey as a rare "doublet," involved two major tremors occurring within seconds of each other. The first, a magnitude 7.2 quake, was followed 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 tremor, causing widespread devastation along Venezuela's northern coast. La Guaira, a coastal city just north of the capital Caracas, was among the areas hardest hit.

Mejia, 36, had just finished a workout in the hotel's gym and entered an elevator to return to his room on the sixth floor. He stated that he pressed the button for his floor, but the elevator instead descended to the ground floor because another guest had summoned it. This detour allowed him to exit into the lobby just as the building began to collapse.

"I think it was God because instead of going up, it went down to the...