Mexican woman helps migrants deal with life as amputees

Published: 2004-05-10

TAPACHULA, Mexico (CNS) -- Wilmer Dubon said every day he thanks God he is still alive after members of a violent youth gang pushed him off a freight train laden with hundreds of Central American migrants heading for the United States. Dubon, who lay for eight hours on the track before he was taken to a hospital to have his left leg amputated at the thigh, said learning to feel grateful has not been easy. "At first I wanted vengeance. I wanted to kill the people who had done this to me," said the 25-year-old Honduran farmer who left his tiny village for the United States because it was the only hope he felt he had to pull his family out of poverty. Dubon has found some solace in a threadbare charity shelter for Central American amputees in the sticky lowland Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border where the train begins its journey north. The Good Shepherd Shelter was set up by a Mexican charismatic Catholic, Olga Sanchez, who promised God to dedicate her life to others 13 years ago after she recovered from cancer. She decided to concentrate on helping the train's victims after witnessing their struggle to come to terms with their broken bodies and shattered dreams.

Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .