Family of Texas SUV crash survivor: ‘Please, President Biden, we ask for your help’

The family of a survivor of the SUV crash that killed eight people at a bus stop near a migrant shelter in Texas on Sunday pleaded for President Biden’s help in reuniting their family. 

Yuleissi Andreina Quintero, the wife of 27-year-old Gabriel Gallardo, who survived the crash in the border city of Brownsville, said in a video message that she and her two children are still in Colombia and need to be with her husband, NBC News reported. 

“My sons and I need to be with my husband — as well as his mother. We left Venezuela with a future and a dream for his children. That dream has been turned upside down. Please, President Biden, we ask for your help, please,” Quintero said. 

In addition to the eight fatalities, at least 10 people were injured in the crash. The alleged driver, 34-year-old George Alvarez, has been charged with eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Police believe he lost control of his vehicle after driving through a red light, causing him to hit a group of Venezuelans outside the migrant shelter, but investigators are also looking into whether the collision was intentional. 

In a video Gallardo recorded from his hospital bed, he told Biden that he came to the United States to give his children a better life. His leg was partially amputated following the crash. 

“My dream is gone,” he said. 

The video was provided to NBC and Noticias Telemundo and translated from Spanish.

Gallardo said he is hoping that his mother, wife and children can come to the U.S. to be with him. 

“I’m hoping you’ll give us consideration after everything that we suffered yesterday,” he said. 

Nancy Xiomara García Contreras, Gallardo’s mother, also asked in a video that his family be allowed to be with him. 

“Please help us to get there so that he can see his children so that his wife can be there to help support him. … I don’t have a passport, I don’t have any way to get there,” she said, according to NBC.