The death toll is at least 50 after the bodies were found in the abandoned tractor-trailer on a sweltering day in Texas.
By Dennis Romero, Suzanne Gamboa, Chantal Da Silva & Rhoda Kwan | NBC News | JUN. 27, 2022 | Photo by Jordan Vonderhaar
SAN ANTONIO — Dozens of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio on Monday in what appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.
The bodies of at least 46 people were initially found in the tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat, officials said. Sixteen others, including four children, were hospitalized, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said.
On Tuesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the death toll had risen to 50. He said 22 of the dead were Mexican nationals, while seven were from Guatemala and two from Honduras. The nationalities of the remaining 19 people had yet to be confirmed.
López Obrador said the Mexican government would be providing assistance to the family members of the dead.
Three people were taken into custody following the discovery, San Antonio Police Chief William P. McManus said, though he added authorities did not know if they were definitely connected to the incident. He did not expand on their identities.
The grim discovery was made early Monday evening in an undeveloped area of southwest San Antonio near railroad tracks. A person who works in the area reported hearing a cry for help and spotted at least one body, officials said.
Homeland Security Investigations responded to the incident on Quintana Road near Cassin Road following a call from the San Antonio Police Department and found more than 40 deceased individuals at the scene, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday in a statement.
“We’re not supposed to open up a truck and see stacks of bodies in there,” Hood said.
McManus said the survivors lacked water and air conditioning. “The patients that we saw were hot to the touch,” he said. “They were suffering from heat stroke, heat exhaustion.”
McManus said Homeland Security Investigations had taken over the investigation into the deadly incident. The heat is likely to be a focus, with temperatures climbing to 101 Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
The heat inside the trailer packed with people was likely to have been significantly higher than the outside temperature.
A committee of the National Association of Medical Examiners has recommended that bodies with temperatures of 105 or greater at the time of collapse be certified as heat-related deaths.
Some migrants die in hospitals, others in critical condition
Five people were taken to Baptist Medical Center in San Antonio Monday night. Three have since died and two remain in critical condition, the hospital said.
Methodist Hospital Metropolitan in downtown San Antonio is treating three patients, described by officials as two males and one female who are listed in critical but stable condition. The hospital has been unable to verify their ages. Meanwhile, University Hospital in San Antonio is treating two patients: a 23-year-old woman in serious condition and an adolescent male in critical condition, hospital spokesperson Andra Wazir said.
Two Mexican nationals at Texas Vista Medical Center are “dehydrated, receiving medical care now,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter.
J. Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic Charities in San Antonio, and Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, who leads the archdiocese of San Antonio, visited the University Hospital patients.
Fernandez could not confirm the patients' names or ages.
They were intubated and had many other tubes connected to them. The male patient could not speak but he was wearing a scapular, a Catholic religious accessory that goes around the neck, he said.
There was security posted for the female patient but not for the male patient, Fernandez noted.
He and García-Siller asked her if they could pray for her and she nodded her head, Fernandez said.
They asked if she was from Guatemala and she nodded again, he said.
“It was a nice experience to end the day that way,” Fernandez said.
Guatemalan authorities estimate it will take three days to identify the bodies of migrants from that nation, the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The Guatemalan consulate in McAllen, Texas, has contacted forensic doctors working to identify the dead and indicated that “the probable cause of death was heat stroke due to being overcrowded.”
