A “heartbreaking” 911 call from a man who said he and about 80 other migrants were trapped in the back of a tanker truck and struggling to breathe has sparked a massive search in the San Antonio, Texas area. , the Bexar County sheriff told CBS News on Wednesday.
At approximately 10 a.m. on Feb. 8, a man called 911 and told the office that he and other undocumented immigrants were trapped, according to a recording of the call obtained by CBS News.
“We need help,” the caller said in Spanish. Others could be heard screaming, crying, and breathing hard throughout the nearly four-minute call.
“We’re dying,” the man said, while others could be heard calling for help.
“We don’t have any more oxygen,” he added.
“How many people are there?” The sender asked shortly afterwards.
“80 people,” the man replied. The office, surprised, asked again, “How many? 80?” – But the call ended moments later.
Dispatchers received another call shortly after. The caller told the office that he and the other migrants were still trapped in the truck and did not know where they were.
“We don’t see anything, we’re inside a tanker truck,” the man said, adding that he believed the truck was parked on the side of the road “because cars are circulating there.”
“You literally hear people who think they’re a few minutes from death,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told CBS News. Salazar said the calls were “heartbreaking” and left 911 dispatchers “visibly shaken.”
Local and federal agencies, including immigration and customs officials, are investigating the calls. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has released surveillance footage of what it says could be the truck in question, but Salazar noted the difficulty of locating a specific white tanker truck in a large city or around several major roads.
“There is always hope,” Salazar said, when asked if migrants could stay alive two days after making the call.
“I can’t even imagine what they experienced,” he added, expressing concern that the truck driver may have left the vehicle once he realized the gravity of the situation.
“I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if this guy or these people parked this trailer, walked away from it and left it,” he said. “These people are trapped and God knows what will happen to them at that time.”
When asked if he thought the calls could be a hoax, Salazar said he would bet “on the rest of my payroll for the rest of my life because that’s not a hoax.”
“That was very real, what we were hearing,” he said.
Salazar noted that “thousands” of people are victims of human smuggling every day and said the 911 calls provide a “very bleak memory of what exactly these people are facing.”
“These people are … stuck in this truck they have no way out of,” he added. “They are at the mercy of these traffickers.”
In a broader statement issued Wednesday on border control numbers, Customs and Border Protection noted the danger of smuggling operations.
“All too often our agents find human remains or encounter lost migrants who are sick, injured and abandoned by smugglers. We are also seeing migrants subjected to inhumane conditions locked in tractor trailers, car trunks, railway wagons and crowded houses. incredibly dangerous, especially in the COVID era, ”the agency said.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to the reports.