Deaths in train car were slow, painful

CNN ^ | Tuesday, October 15, 2002 | cnn

[FITZ]

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Eleven suspected illegal immigrants whose badly decomposed bodies were found in a locked railroad car probably died slowly and painfully from severe overheating or asphyxiation, authorities said Tuesday.

The victims apparently boarded the grain hopper in Mexico four months ago and may have been smuggled into the country, said Jerry Heinauer, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Nebraska and Iowa.

[FITZ]

Why can't Mexico's President Fox get conditions improving in Mexico so people don't face this?

[The FRugitive]

How horrible!

So the smuggler just took their money and left them to a painfull death?

[FITZ]

Apparently that's what they did. Very sad.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Heinauer said authorities did not yet know if the victims were being smuggled...

Where did the INS find this fool?

[IronJack]

probably died slowly and painfully from severe overheating or asphyxiation

Lesson? Don't hop a grain hopper. Try AMTRAK. It's at least measurably more comfortable.

[dead]

That's a horrible, horrible way to go. Just miserable.

I hope most of them just passed out.

[FITZ]

I hope most of them just passed out.

You can only hope that's what happened, maybe a very hot day so they didn't suffer long. It would have been better if the trains were all checked coming over the border, even the locked cars. The one who locked them up probably didn't care what happened.

[csvset]

Hopper Car

You would think that of those 11 people, one of them would have figured out that climbing into that tank was like climbing into a coffin.

[Junior]

Desperate people do desperate things.

[FITZ]

It could have been a Mexican government official convincing them to get in the car and locking it up from the outside.