Body of Dix Hills native identified in Florida building collapse, Miami-Dade Police said

The body of a Dix Hills native has been found in the debris of the Surfside, Florida, building collapse, authorities said.

The Miami-Dade Police Department said in a Tweet that it found Dr. Brad Cohen, 51, an orthopedic surgeon and a father of two, on July 7 and positively identified him on Friday.

Search crews had found the body of his brother, Dr. Gary Cohen, 58, a father of two and attending physician at Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center in Alabama, also on July 7 but had identified him on July 8.

Authorities have identified 95 victims in the June 24 collapse, Miami-Dade County said in a news release on Sunday.

Gary Cohen had traveled to Surfside, a beach town just across Biscayne Bay from Miami, on June 23 to visit his ailing father and to celebrate his parents' wedding anniversary. He was staying in his brother's apartment on the 11th floor of Champlain Towers South when the oceanfront condominium collapsed.

Brad Cohen's 12-year-old daughter, Elisheva Cohen, met with President Joe Biden in Surfside earlier this month after images of her reading a Hebrew prayer at the collapse site caught the attention of local officials.

Brad Cohen earned his medical degree at the Cincinnati School of Medicine and took a general surgery internship and orthopedic surgery residency at Stony Brook University Hospital. An orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine, he also worked in a local emergency room as an on-call trauma surgeon.

Rabbi Yaakov Saacks, who runs the Lubavitch Chai Center of Dix Hills, has known the Cohens for 25 years. While completing his residency program, Brad Cohen expressed interest in deepening his knowledge of Judaism, Saacks said, and eventually he began spending every Shabbat — sundown Friday through sundown Saturday — with the rabbi and his family.

"Brad is very smart and committed to whatever he takes on," Saacks said in an interview earlier this month. "Judaism takes commitment."

A third brother, Neil Cohen, lives in Medford.

Last week, the remains of Judy Spiegel, 65, a former Southampton stockbroker and mother of three, were found in the rubble from the condo collapse. Spiegel, 65, was born in South Bellmore, and raised her family in Plainview and later, Southampton.

Her husband, Kevin Spiegel, the former administrator of Southampton Hospital, was on a business trip in California at the time of the collapse.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.