One of the survivors of the bus stop crash in Brownsville, Texas, that left at least eight dead and 10 injured is speaking out, urging President Joe Biden to take action.
"I came to offer my kids a better future and just got here yesterday — I arrived and now I don’t have a leg," Gabriel Gallardo, 27, said from his hospital bed in a video message translated from Spanish that was directed at the American president and was provided to Noticias Telemundo and NBC News. The man suffered a partially amputated leg. "My dream is gone," he said.
“I’m hoping that my mom, Nancy, my wife, Andreina, and my kids, Gabriel and Angel, can come,” said Gallardo, a migrant who left Venezuela with his family. “I’m hoping you’ll give us consideration after everything that we suffered yesterday.”
Gallardo was one of 10 people injured Sunday after an SUV rammed into a group waiting at a bus stop in the border city of Brownsville. The driver, whom authorities identified as George Alvarez, 34, has been charged with eight counts of manslaughter.
Authorities are investigating and have not ruled out the possibility that the crash was intentional.
Gallardo's wife and two children, who remain in Colombia, said they are "devastated" and pleaded for help in another video.
"My sons and I need to be with my husband — as well as his mother. We left Venezuela with a future and a dream for his children. That dream has been turned upside down. Please President Biden, we ask for your help please," said Gallardo's wife, Yuleissi Andreina Quintero, who is 29.
Gallardo's mother, Nancy Xiomara García Contreras, who is also in Colombia, said in a video: "Please help us to get there so that he can see his children so that his wife can be there to help support him ... I don't have a passport, I don't have any way to get there."
The victims of the crash are all believed to be migrants who were waiting at the stop near the Ozanam Center shelter.
Gallardo had crossed the border with other migrants, including his cousin Raul Antonio Ramos, who also sustained injuries in the crash.
"I don’t even have the words to express how I’m feeling," Gallardo said. "So much pain, so much suffering I went through to get here. God, I feel so bad, I feel so bad for it all."
