GREENVILLE, SC – Days after a ceiling collapsed on a sleeping baby at Greenville’s Shemwood Crossing apartment complex, the mess remains. The child is okay, but insulation and debris continue to fill the air and the family says they were told they had to stay there.

“I came upstairs and all I could hear was her crying. I opened the door and my body just went into total shock,” explained Natasha McAllister.

It is a mother’s worse nightmare to open the door and not be able to see your child. Instead there were mounds of sheetrock, insulation and debris.

“First thing I thought was she’s going to come out with blood or a broken arm or something and I was just really hurt,” she explained.

McAllister screamed for her boyfriend. Antwon Manning said he went into rescue mode, digging through the mess to find his child.

“She couldn’t breathe [and] she was gasping for air, so I brought her outside so she could get a fresh breath of air,” said Manning.

He said the bed’s headboard created a buffer for his daughter.

“It changed everything. It really did. If it had been in any different position, we’d be having a whole different conversation,” said Manning.

Now, the conversation is what’s next.

With just a plastic sheet and caution tape between them, it is a potential health hazard according to activist Bruce Wilson.

“Management at this apartment complex is telling the family, “Hey, stay here. You’ll be alright.” This happened on Saturday. Look where we are now and this family is still in this apartment,” he said.

7 News’ Addie Hampton tracked down the property owner who said they’d just learned of the collapse that morning

They said they would be moving the family to another apartment as soon as they could, but we wanted to know why it took this long for the property owner to learn about this and why it took more than 3 days for relief to come.

The owner said they were investigating the delay.

7 News called the city of Greenville to talk to them about inspections for this property. We’re still waiting to hear back.

This property was built in the late 60’s at a time when there were no building codes for the area. We’ll keep you posted on what they tell us and what that means for this property moving forward.