Sudden Celebrity Puzzles Freeway Ordeal Survivor

In the two weeks since the tale of his gritty four-day vigil along a freeway median drew national attention, hit-and-run survivor Juan Francisco Camacho remains bewildered over the outpouring of public sympathy in cards, letters, checks and offers of employment, from Alaska to North Carolina.

The wall above his hospital bed--where the 20-year-old Mexican migrant worker will remain in traction for months to come--is filled with notes and hand-drawn pictures from well-wishers, including a letter from former President Reagan.

Each day, nurses bring new stacks of mail to add to the more than 100 letters and packages he has received--including collective notes from preschool classes in Arizona and Northern California, as well as an offer from a local man to fly Camacho’s mother to San Diego from his hometown in southern Mexico.

Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla has even begun a trust fund in Camacho’s name to handle the many checks and money orders still pouring in.

But Camacho, a shy man who speaks no English but still finds a way to flirt with the nurses on his floor, has grown weary of the constant press intrusion. Last week, as a photographer from a Florida-based tabloid positioned Camacho’s arms and head, the usually easygoing man finally placed his hands over his face as if to say, “The photo session is over,” nurses said.

Now, a “No Visitors” sign hangs on the door of his room. Lack of privacy is one of the prices Camacho has paid for his new-found and unsolicited fame.

“For a while, he was getting bothered all the time by reporters and television cameras, wanting pictures of his wounds and all the emotional insights of what he went through,” said Adelaida Bernas, a nurse who supervises Camacho’s care.

“He’s embarrassed the way they’re exposing his medical problems. He doesn’t speak English, so the only way he can deal with it is cover his face with his hands or a newspaper.”

Said another nurse: “A lot of reporters are like little gnats, they’re so pushy. But he wasn’t going to be intimidated--especially by a woman photographer.”

Camacho entered the national spotlight last month after he lay near death in the brushy median of Interstate 5 in Oceanside for four days, as hundreds of thousands of motorists passed by without noticing him.

At the end of his 92-hour saga--in which the delirious Camacho drank water from a roadside sprinkler and several times thought he heard the telephone wires overhead answering his calls--he was spotted by a motorist after crawling from the cover of thick oleander bushes and back onto the road shoulder.

Camacho, who suffered a shattered pelvis, broken arm and shoulder and internal injuries, was trying to cross the busy freeway shortly before dusk one Saturday when he was apparently struck from behind by a hit-and-run driver. When he was rescued by paramedics the following Wednesday afternoon, his body was wracked with infection. (His hospital bills--estimated by doctors to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars--are being paid by Scripps.)

Nearly a month after his ordeal, Camacho still cannot understand why so many Americans have become fascinated with his gutsy efforts to stay alive. Those who have come to know him say that, as an undocumented laborer living at a rural, makeshift campsite since his arrival in the United States four years ago, Camacho’s everyday existence has been a tale of determined survival.

Suddenly, however, he’s become an object of attention for reporters from more than a dozen newspapers, magazines and TV stations--all of whom want to tell the painful details of a struggle that played itself out within an arm’s reach of one of the world’s busiest freeways.

“To him, he did nothing that he considered heroic,” said Terri Marquez, a Spanish-speaking nurse’s aide who has interpreted interviews for Camacho and still visits him regularly.

“The life he has led in the migrant camps the past few years has taught him how to be a survivor, how to find water, go without food. So surviving is nothing new to him.

“He just doesn’t understand why he’s become such a celebrity. It’s not just a language barrier, it’s a cultural barrier as well.”

Although his infections and resulting fever have blurred Camacho’s memory of the details of his ordeal, he has nonetheless struggled--time and again--to answer reporters’ questions.

“He told me that so many people want the details of what was going on in his mind during those long days and nights,” Marquez said. “But he’s frustrated. He says, ‘How can I tell them how I felt if I’m not sure of the words myself?’ ”

Along with the intrusion, there is a positive side to all the attention, Camacho acknowledges: the cheery get-well cards and letters that just keep coming, from Maine, Nevada, Missouri and British Columbia--places Camacho had never even heard of.

They come written in both Spanish and English. Some have religious overtones, others include checks and a word of good luck. Children have written endearing letters full of pictures of stick men meant to represent Camacho lying by the roadside. Still other letters offer jobs and sundry rays of hope:

“Please come to Alaska, go to adult school and get a good job,” one letter reads. “Employers in Alaska want courageous people like you.”

Another letter responded to earlier reports that Camacho had yet to tell his sickly mother back home in Oaxaca of his ordeal: “Call your mother,” the male writer advised. “Even though she’s sick, she still worries and cares about you. I mean, if I care about you, imagine how she feels.”

The letter Camacho most cherishes came from Reagan, who drew from his own mishaps to offer a note of hope: “This is a difficult time for you; however, from personal experience, we have found that your burden can become lighter if you trust in the Lord and in those who care about you.”

The letters, Camacho says, are bright spots that balance out the nightmares he still has about the incident. He plans to answer each of them in person.