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Illegal Immigrant Found Trapped in Train; Released without Deportation
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A Honduran immigrant spent two days trapped in a train car in stifling heat before he was rescued when someone heard his cries for help.

The man, who was not identified, was rescued Saturday when the train came to a stop in the San Antonio area.

He told authorities he had left Honduras several of weeks ago and worked his way up to Laredo, where he paid a smuggler $2,000 to get to New York City, Bexar County Sheriff's Sgt. Russell McWhorter said.

"Off he went to San Antonio, with no food or water or any way to get out of the train," McWhorter said.

"This guy coming to America, he is suffocating, he is dehydrated, he can't get out and he doesn't know what his future holds for him," McWhorter said. "By a miracle of God, he is rescued."

After two days, the double stacked rail car stopped and the man started yelling and screaming and waving his hands through crevices in the train car.

"With afternoon temperatures close to the high 90s, the temperature inside the metal car must have been more than 100," McWhorter said.

Henry Lopez, 27, heard the man's yelling from his house across the street from the railroad tracks. Lopez said he was cleaning his garage when saw neighborhood children gathered in the field and a hand waving a red rag from the rail car. He heard a man screaming in Spanish that he was suffocating and needed water.

Lopez called 911 and then scaled the 10-foot fence and passed the man food and drink, including water, Gatorade and crackers.

"I just did what was right," Lopez said. "If he was eight cars down, nobody would have heard him. I was at the right place at the right time. So was he."

Lopez said the man told him he was traveling with three other men from Laredo who left the train down the line when he was asleep.

The deputies removed the man from the rail car and ticketed him for tampering with railroad property, a misdemeanor offense, McWhorter said. The deputies then called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the agency couldn't respond within the period in which deputies can legally detain someone that hasn't been arrested.

Agency officials couldn't be reached for comment.

The man was then released. He went to a nearby bus station, where he was "on his way to find his family in New York City," McWhorter said.

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Information from: San Antonio Express-News, http://www.mysanantonio.com



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