San Antonio (WBAP/KLIF News) – Nine people have died in a human trafficking operation in San Antonio. More than three dozen people were found in a semi-truck parked outside a Wal-Mart early Sunday morning.
Thirty survivors were taken to hospitals for dehydration or heat stroke.
“Paramedics found that each one of them had heart rates over 130 beats per minute,” says San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood. “They were very hot to the touch.”
A Wal-Mart employee called 911 when police say someone asked the employee for water.
“The loss of these lives is a heartbreaking tragedy,” Governor Greg Abbott wrote in a statement. “Human trafficking is an epidemic that Texas is working to eradicate.”
The driver of the truck was arrested. In 2003, a truck driver was sentenced to 34 years in prison when 19 people died in the back of a truck near Victoria, southwest of Houston.
Earlier this month, Customs and Border Protection found 72 people locked in a truck near Laredo.
(Copyright 2017 WBAP/KLIF News. All rights reserved)
