One of the surviving smugglers pulled from the hot tractor-trailer in Texas last week told the gruesome story, describing how smugglers lined the truck’s bed with meat seasoning and later migrants further from the big rig door shouted that he couldn’t to breathe. Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás is one of 64 suspected illegal immigrants found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer on the outskirts of San Antonio just hours after they crossed a US Border Patrol checkpoint. Authorities said 48 were pronounced dead at the scene, while others were rushed to area hospitals. The death toll has since risen to 53 suspected illegal immigrants who died as a result of the June 27 people-smuggling operation, with the vast majority of victims from Guatemala. TEXAS TRUCK DRIVER SMILES FOR BORDER CHECKPOINT CAMERAS HOURS BEFORE DEAD IMMIGRANTS ARE FOUND Speaking by phone from her bed at Methodist Hospital Metropolitan in San Antonio on Monday, Cardona Tomás, 20, of Guatemala City, told The Associated Press that she believed the truck’s final destination was supposed to be Houston, although she intended to head in North Carolina. Mynor Cardona shows on her cellphone a photo of her daughter, Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás, at the hospital during a visit, in Guatemala City, Monday, July 4, 2022. ((AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)) He said the smugglers had confiscated their cellphones and covered the floor of the trailer with what he believes was powdered chicken bouillon, apparently to throw off any dogs at checkpoints. As she sat stuffed inside the suffocating trailer with dozens of others, she said the powder stung her skin. Remembering a friend’s advice to stay near the door where it would be cooler, Cardona Tomás shared the advice with another friend she had made during the trip. “I told a friend that we shouldn’t go back and we should stay close (to the entrance), in the same place without moving,” Cardona Tomás said. And this friend survived. “People were shouting, some were crying. Mostly women asking him to stop and open the doors because it was hot, that they couldn’t breathe,” she recalled, who still struggles to speak after being intubated at the hospital. . He said the driver or someone else in the taxi shouted that “we were about to arrive, that it was 20 minutes, six minutes.” Mynor Cardona, the father of Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás, enters the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a meeting with authorities to learn about the fate of his daughter, in Guatemala City, Thursday, June 30, 2022. ((AP Photo/Moises Castillo) ) “People asked for water, some had run out, some carried some,” he said. The truck continued to stop occasionally, but just before she passed out it was moving slowly. He woke up in the hospital. Cardona Tomás’ father back in the family’s hometown of Guatemala City told the AP he agreed to pay a smuggler $4,000 – less than half the total cost – to get his daughter to the US. He left Guatemala on May 30, traveling by car, bus and finally by semi-trailer to Texas. “She didn’t have a job and she asked me if I would support her” in immigrating to the U.S., her father, Mynor Cordóna, said Monday, explaining that he knew of other cases of children who just left without telling their families and it was over. was disappearing or dying, so he decided to support her. Mynor Cardona and Ufemia Tomas, parents of Yenifer Yulisa Cardona Tomás, smile as they speak with her by phone at the hospital where she is being treated in Guatemala City, Monday, July 4, 2022. ((AP Photo/Oliver de Ros) ) Cordóna had stayed in touch with his daughter until the morning of June 27. Her last message to him was at 10:28 am. in Guatemala or at 11:28 A.M. in Texas. “We’ll be going in an hour,” he wrote. “I didn’t know it was going to be traveling in a trailer,” he said. “She told us it would be on foot. It seems at the last minute the smugglers decided to put her in the trailer, along with two more friends, who survived. One of them is still in critical condition.” It wasn’t until late that night that Cardona Tomás’ family learned about the abandoned trailer. It was another two days before relatives in the United States confirmed that she was alive and in hospital. “We cried so much,” Cordóna said. “I was even thinking about where we’re going to wake her up and bury her. It’s a miracle.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Guatemala’s foreign ministry said 20 Guatemalans died in the incident, 16 of whom have been positively identified. Foreign Minister Mario Bucaro said he hoped the first bodies would be repatriated this week. Four men, including the driver of the truck, have been charged in connection with what is being described as the deadliest human-smuggling operation along the US-Mexico border in recent history. Along the border in Texas, US authorities stopped immigrants from crossing illegally 523,000 times between January and May, up from 417,000 during the same period a year ago. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Danielle Wallace is a reporter for Fox News Digital covering politics, crime, police and more. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @danimwallace.
