By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A Cuban woman who collapsed in the water while crossing the Rio Grande illegally with relatives has become the seventeenth immigrant death in Val Verde County this year, sheriff’s office officials said Friday.
Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Gina Garcia, who heads the VVSO’s criminal investigations division, said sheriff’s office deputies were notified about the incident Wednesday morning.
“We received information from DPS (Texas Department of Public Safety), which had put out that they had a female that they had pulled out of the water, and they were doing CPR. EMS was contacted and the fire department,” Garcia said.
“We were later told the female was being transported via ambulance to the Val Verde Regional Medical Center emergency room,” Garcia added.
Garcia said the woman was pulled from the Rio Grande about a mile upstream of the former Bordelon house, a site that has become a popular entry point for immigrants crossing the river into Texas.
VVSO Lt. Manuel “Manny” Herrera said a sheriff’s office sergeant went to the scene.
“By the time she got there, the woman had already been placed in the ambulance and taken to the hospital, so as far as we knew at that point it became a medical issue,” he said.
“It was later discovered that she had died,” Herrera added.
Garcia said she followed up and spoke with Justice of the Peace Pct. 4 Hilda Lopez, who had pronounced the woman dead.
Garcia said the woman had been traveling in the company of family members, including a daughter, son-in-law and a family friend.
“They explained to one of the investigators that they had been robbed on the Mexico side and when they got to the point on the river where they were going to cross, those individuals were still there. At some point, this woman fell into the water. It is thought that, because of panic, she may have had a heart attack, as she has a long list of medical conditions, which is what the daughter shared with us,” Garcia said.
“So the daughter jumped into the water to save her, and instead of going back to Mexico, they all swam over to the United States side of the river,” Garcia added.
She said the woman’s son-in-law got out of the water and ran to Vega Verde Road, where he waved down a DPS trooper stationed in the area.
“The DPS came and helped them and began performing CPR on the woman,” Garcia said.
She said Lopez ordered an autopsy, and the body was taken to the Webb County Medical Examiner’s Office in Laredo. There were no signs of foul play on the body, Garcia added.
Garcia said the rest of the woman’s family and traveling companion were turned over to the Border Patrol.
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