Mynor Cardona shows a photo on her cell phone of her daughter, Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás, at the hospital as she receives a one in Guatemala City on Monday. Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás is one of the survivors of more than 50 migrants who were found dead in a tractor-trailer near San Antonio, Texas. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)
GUATEMALA CITY — A friend’s undeniable recommendation to stay at the door would likely have saved Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás from the fateful fate of 53 other migrants when they were trapped in a suffocating semi-trailer last week outside San Antonio.
GUATEMALA CITY — A friend’s undeniable recommendation to stay at the door would likely have saved Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás from the fateful fate of 53 other migrants when they were trapped in a suffocating semi-trailer last week outside San Antonio.
Speaking by phone from her hospital bed on Monday, the 20-year-old from the Guatemalan capital said she was already hot on June 27 when she left the warehouse on the Texas side of the Mexican border where she was waiting and was taken to the back of the trailer.
She said smugglers confiscated her cell phones and covered the floor of the caravan with what she believed to be powdered bird broth, to get rid of the dogs at checkpoints. As she sat inside the loaded caravan with dozens of others, the dust was itchy on her skin.
Recalling her friend’s warning to stay at the door where she would be cooler, Cardona Tomás shared the recommendation with another friend with whom she had made the trip.
“I told a friend to go back and stay close (to the entrance), in the same position without moving,” said Cardona Tomas, who is being treated at San Antonio Metropolitan Methodist Hospital. This friend also survived.
As the truck moved forward, making more stops to pick up more migrants, other people began to gather near the gate like Cardona Tomás. He had no way to measure time.
“People were screaming, some were crying. Most of the women would call to prevent and open the doors because it was hot, they couldn’t breathe,” she said, still suffering to communicate a little after being intubated at the hospital.
He said that the driving force or in the taxi replied that “we were about to arrive, that there were 20 minutes, six minutes left. “
“People were asking for water, some had no more, some were bringing it,” he said.
The truck kept interfering from time to time, but before it lost consciousness, it was moving slowly. He woke up in the hospital.
The driving force and 3 other people were arrested and charged through U. S. prosecutors.
Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry said 20 Guatemalans were killed in the incident, 16 of whom are known for certain. Foreign Minister Mario Bucaro said he expected the first bodies to be repatriated this week.
Cardona Tomas said the van’s destination that day was Houston, eventually heading to North Carolina.
“She had no homework and asked me if I wanted her” on her migration to the United States, her father, Mynor Cordóna, said Monday in Guatemala City, where the family circle lives. She said she knew of other cases of young people who had just left without telling their families and ended up disappearing or dying, so he made a decision with her.
He paid $4,000 to a smuggler — less than a portion of the total cost — to take him to the United States. She left Guatemala on May 30, traveled by car, bus, and finally on a semi-trailer in Texas.
“I didn’t know I was going to travel in a caravan,” he said. “He told us it would be on foot. It turns out that at the last moment the smugglers put her in the caravan, with two other friends. , who survived. One of them remains in critical condition.
Cordóna had remained in contact with her daughter until the morning of June 27. His last message on Monday at 10:28 a. m. in Guatemala or at 11:28 a. m. m. in Texas. ” We passed to pass in an hour,” he wrote.
It wasn’t until after the night that Cardona Tomás’ relatives learned of the deserted caravan. Another two days passed before relatives in the United States proved she was alive and hospitalized.