In order for the young Cuban Ernudis Echeverría to reach this capital city, where he is now receiving medical attention, many hands of solidarity played their part in a story full of pain, hope and, above all, love.
It was his mother's call to the coordinator of the Puentes de Amor group, Carlos Lazo, that moved 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 elderly peasant woman who told me she had a problem and explained that her three children left the island about eight months ago," Lazo told Prensa Latina.
"Puentes de amor is in the imagination of the people and sometimes they think we can do more than what is within our reach, because people see a hope, a group of Cuban emigrants, people who are fighting against Washington's economic blockade," he explained.
The lady, Lazo said, told him that her boys, after five months of being in U.S. territory doing various tasks, because they still did not have a work permit, one of them went out to a party in the countryside and while he was making a video call to her he fell down a cliff.
The accident was brutal: the motorcycle in which he was traveling was left on top of him and it was necessary the intervention of specialized forces and a helicopter to pull him out of the place where his body was destroyed.
Ernudis Echeverría's life was hanging by a thread, the cranial trauma was significant and doctors performed emergency surgery to save him, in addition to the fact that he had 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 left him for dead.
His two brothers did not have work permits or anything that would guarantee any other type of care, he said, so they called their mother in Cuba to make the tough decision to disconnect him, something they all refused to do.
However, contrary to medical criteria, Ernudis Echeverría managed to breathe on his own, although his condition was still very delicate, since he depended, among other things, on an IV to feed him directly.
"Without medical insurance or anything like that, the American doctors treated him well, but sent him home because there was nothing else to do," said the coordinator of Puentes de Amor.
It was then that this group went into action, because after spending two months at the home of his siblings, who took turns taking care of him while they did 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 comes out on the postcards, but the illusion and the dream can turn into 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 added, and work at anything to earn 20 or 30 pesos.
"Sometimes you don't know what you have until you lose it, and the dream they had, like many, to progress, to help their families, became a nightmare for them".
HELPING HANDS
The mother asked us for help, she said that if her boy was going to die, she would be by his side to take care of him; with that in mind we called the Cuban embassy in Washington.
"The ambassador, Lianys Torres, is a person with great human sensitivity and she immediately affirmed that they would help in any way they could. The boy had no passport or anything, no money and in record time the embassy verified his name and had a special document created for these cases," said Lazo.
They didn't ask how he had left the country or anything like that, they were simply willing to help, he said.
Once that part was over, Puentes de Amor had the challenge of moving 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 to one person, a very supportive charter airline, who assured they would help return him to the island, all that was left was to transport him to Miami.
"I called others who could help with money to rent a vehicle and we went there, four thousand or so kilometers round trip," Lazo said.
Ernudis Echeverría arrived in Miami on Sunday 19 at night and on Monday flew to her country together with the coordinator of Puentes de Amor and Elena Freire, from the Alianza Martiana Coalition and "a very solidary 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 and 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 of the experts is that rehabilitation could help the patient's condition to improve, but the next few days will be crucial in his treatment.
"This story has many sides: of how life can change, of the solidarity of Cuban emigrants, of the actions of our embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which were immediately willing to bring him without asking anything, only that there is a Cuban mother in need and this has to be solved," Lazo said.
"Now, God willing, and at least the love, the attention of the Cuban health personnel, who may not have all the resources because of the blockade situation, but they do have all the love, he is going to have it", he added.
There he was already hopeless, they had not even given him any therapy, they do not have medical 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 Bridges of Love had existed only for this, it was worth it."