Photo: Facebook/Carlos Lazo. Bridges of Love.
For the young Cuban Ernudis Echeverría to arrive in this capital where today he receives medical attention, many hands of solidarity played their part in a story full of pain, hope and, above all, love.
It was the call from his mother to the coordinator of the Puentes de Amor group, Carlos Lazo, that touched hearts and mobilized help, to be able to transfer Echeverría from Texas, in the United States, where he suffered a serious accident that almost cost him his life.
About 20 days ago I received a request from a mother, an old peasant woman who tells me she has a problem and explains that her three children left the island approximately eight months ago, Lazo told Prensa Latina.
“Puentes de amor is in the imagination of the people and sometimes they think that we can do more than what is within our reach, because people see hope, a group of Cuban emigrants, people who are fighting against the economic blockade in Washington” he explained.
The lady, Lazo specified, told him that her boys, after five months of being in US territory doing various tasks, because they still did not have a work permit, one of them went out to a party in the field and while making a video call fell off a cliff.
The accident was brutal: the motorcycle he was traveling on fell on him and the intervention of specialized forces and a helicopter was necessary to remove him from the place where his destroyed body was left.
Ernudis Echeverría’s life hung by a thread, the head trauma was significant and to save him the doctors performed emergency surgeries, in addition to having multiple fractures in his arms and legs.
“He was in a coma for three months,” Lazo said, adding that after that time connected and breathing through equipment, the health personnel considered that there was nothing more to do and they presumed him dead.
His two brothers did not have a work permit or anything that would guarantee another type of care, he said, so they called the mother in Cuba to make the harsh decision to disconnect him, something to which they all refused.
However, contrary to medical criteria, Ernudis Echeverría managed to breathe on his own, although his condition was still very delicate, since it depended, among other things, on a way to feed him directly.
“Without medical insurance or anything like that, the American doctors treated him well, but they sent him home because there was nothing else to do there,” said the coordinator of Bridges of Love.
It was then that this group took action, because after spending two months at his brothers’ house, who took turns taking care of him while doing odd jobs to survive, the mother asked for help to bring him back home.
“The story moved me, this is life: you think you are going to a dream, an illusion, and sometimes that is not seen, that is not what appears on the postcards, but the illusion and the dream can become a nightmare,” he assured Prensa Latina.
Lazo added that the three young people emigrated illegally, by sea, with the desire to seek a better future and help their family. They come from a blockaded country, he said, and they work at anything to earn 20 or 30 pesos.
“Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose it, and the dream that they had, like many, of progressing, of helping their family, turned into a nightmare.”
solidarity hands
Photo: Facebook/Carlos Lazo. Bridges of Love.
The mother asked us for help, she said that if her boy was going to die, to be by her side to take care of him; With that idea we called the Cuban embassy in Washington.
“The ambassador, Lianys Torres, is a person with great human sensitivity and she immediately stated that they would help in everything. The boy did not have a passport or anything, nor money, and in record time the embassy verified the name and ordered a special document to be created for these cases,” Lazo said.
They didn’t ask how he got out of the country or anything like that, they just went out of their way to help, he said.
Once that part was over, Puentes de Amor had the challenge of transferring the young man from Texas to Florida, specifically Miami, where they were in a better position to find an airline that could bring him to Cuba.
By then they had already spoken with a person, a very supportive charter airline, which he assured would help return him to the island, all that remained was to transport him to Miami.
“Two “puenteros” offered to go look for him in Texas and bring him back, I called others who could help with money to rent a vehicle and we went there, four thousand-odd kilometers round trip,” Lazo said.
Ernudis Echeverría arrived in Miami on Sunday night, the 19th, and on Monday he flew to his country together with the coordinator of Puentes de Amor and Elena Freire, from the Alianza Martiana Coalition and “a very supportive person.”
“I wanted to come with a mother, with the blessing of a Cuban mother,” said Lazo, for whom this story has been a life lesson.
In Cuba, the ambulance and doctors were waiting for them, they took the young man to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, where surgeons, specialists in internal medicine, gastroenterology, ophthalmology, nutrition and surgery evaluated his condition.
Although the brain damage is severe, a first impression from the experts suggests that rehabilitation could help improve the quality of the patient’s condition, but the next few days will be crucial in his treatment.
“This story has many edges: how life can change, the solidarity of Cuban emigrants, the actions of our embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who were immediately willing to bring him without asking anything, only that there is a mother Cuban people in need and this must be resolved,” Lazo said.
“Now that whatever God wants, and at least the love, the attention of the Cuban health personnel, who perhaps will not have all the resources due to the situation of the blockade, but they do have all the love, that will have,” he added.
There he was already evicted, they had not given him any therapy, they do not have health insurance, they have nothing, he emphasized and reiterated that, whatever it is, he will be by his mother’s side, “that gives us a lot of satisfaction.”
“I think that if Puentes de Amor had only existed for this, it would have been worth it.”
Photo: Facebook/Carlos Lazo. Bridges of Love.
On video, statements by Carlos Lazo
(Taken from Latin Press)
