SAN ANTONIO – Dr. Bryan Everitt remembers June 27, 2022, with haunting memories and heavy feelings.
“It’s terrible,” Everitt said. “It’s inhumane, and I hope it never happens again.”
First responders found at least 60 migrants that day in an abandoned tractor-trailer on Quintana Road. Fifty-three migrants did not survive.
The incident was deemed one of the worst human smuggling tragedies in recent history. The migrants were trapped inside the tractor-trailer on a hot summer day with no water, no air conditioning and no way out.
Everitt, who is an EMS physician at University Health and works with UT Health, was among the first responders called to the scene. Multiple city agencies in San Antonio responded to help.
“It stays with you,” Everitt said.
District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia said that for so many people who were there that night, sadness is still strong two years later.
“They really are the ones that see everything firsthand,” Rocha Garcia said. “This is a lot to process for our first responders.”
Rocha Garcia said the city has built a system to check on its own. Her district is also constructing a memorial to give the community a place to grieve.
It’s also a place that led to medical transformations.
“Our treatment of heatstroke has completely changed,” Everitt said. “Our regional trauma systems and our EMS systems have all come together and are now taking a proactive approach to the public safety aspect of this.”
The community is holding a memorial and rosary service at 5 p.m. Saturday.
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