Fumes in Camper Suffocate Mother, 3 Children

A mother and her three children suffocated in the back of a pickup truck as the father drove home from a holiday in Mexico, unaware that deadly carbon monoxide fumes had seeped into the camper shell, officials said Monday.

Customs inspectors at the Port of Entry here found the four unconscious when the father pulled up to the border station at 12:35 a.m. Monday after a three- to four-hour wait in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Police Sgt. Bill Matus said.

“I understand that there were holes in the bed of the pickup truck that allowed carbon monoxide to seep into the camper shell,” Customs spokesman John Miller said.

Customs inspectors attempted to revive the four with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and oxygen, and paramedics arrived almost immediately. But officials at Calexico hospital pronounced the woman and children dead on arrival.

The victims were identified as Micaela Iniguez Aguilar, 26; and Horacio, 6; Francisco Javiar, 4, and Camilio, 3.

The father, Horacio Aguilar, 36, was unhurt.

Matus said the family, all Mexican nationals who lived in the United States as resident aliens, were returning to the San Joaquin Valley town of Laton after a holiday visit to Mexicali.

The four deaths led Customs officers and Calexico police to alert their Mexican counterparts, who went through the line of cars approaching the border station to warn motorists about carbon monoxide dangers.

Less than 1 1/2 hours later, a U.S. Customs inspector found two other children unconscious in the back of another pickup with a camper shell. The children in the second truck, Angelica Ortega, 11, and Armando Ortega, 12, of Niland, Calif., were revived, but remained hospitalized for observation, said Customs spokeswoman Bobbie Cassidy.

Several factors were cited by officials as leading to Monday’s tragedy, believed to be the first such incident in the Calexico Port of Entry’s 15 years of operation, Miller said.

Holiday traffic caused a massive backup at the border station about 100 miles east of San Diego. “That could have contributed to the whole thing,” Matus said.

Miller declined comment on the delays, except to say that all eight lanes at the border station were open.

Miller said the truck’s faulty exhaust system and a cold night also were factors. The camper shell’s windows were closed to ward off the cold, preventing fresh air from flushing out the odorless and invisible carbon monoxide fumes.

Miller added that one of the primary symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning is drowsiness, which left the four particularly vulnerable because they were resting at the time the gas leaked into the compartment.

The Customs spokesman said he expects a review of the case to be made to see if procedures could be revised to help prevent a repetition of such accidents.