One of the survivors of the Brownville bus stop crash that left eight people dead has urged president Joe Biden for help in bringing his family to the US.
In a video message from his hospital bed, 27-year-old Gabriel Gallardo, a migrant from Venezuela, said: “I came to offer my kids a better future and just got here yesterday – I arrived and now I don’t have a leg.”
Mr Gallardo, who had to have a partial amputation of his leg after being injured in the incident, added: “My dream is gone.”
“I’m hoping that my mom, Nancy, my wife, Andreina, and my kids, Gabriel and Angel, can come.”
“I’m hoping you’ll give us consideration after everything that we suffered yesterday,” he addressed the president in the video.
The video was provided to Noticias Telemundo and NBC News.
Mr Gallardo said his wife and two children in Colombia are “devastated”.
Mr Gallardo’s wife, Yuleissi Andreina Quintero, told local media: “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.”
Mr Gallardo’s mother, Nancy Xiomara Garcia 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.”
“I don’t even have the words to express how I’m feeling,” Mr 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.”
Eight people were killed and 10 others injured after a driver in Brownsville, Texas, ploughed his SUV into a group of pedestrians waiting for a bus.
Many of the individuals hit by the SUV were migrants who had just left a nearby migrant centre, according to the Brownsville police. Mr Gallardo was one of 10 people injured in the crash.
On Monday, Brownsville Police chief Felix Sauceda held a press conference, during which he revealed the driver had been identified as George Alvarez, 34. He was charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Mr Alvarez allegedly attempted to flee the scene of the incident after he struck the victims and rolled his jeep.
Bystanders reportedly stopped Mr Alvarez and kept him detained until police arrived. He was then taken into police custody and then to an area hospital to be treated for injuries he sustained in the wreck.
Police said Mr Alvarez was being “very uncooperative” with them during their initial investigation. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the crash was intentional.
The Venezuelan government has called for an investigation to determine if the crash was deliberate and motivated by hate or xenophobia after it emerged that several of the victims were from Venezuela.
