SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN)–A phone call from a Walmart employee led to the discovery of eight bodies and 30 people injured in the back of a tractor-trailer in Texas early Sunday (July 23), authorities said.
The employee told authorities the trailer was parked at a Walmart lot in San Antonio. A man who was in it asked the employee for water, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said.
“With heat strokes or heat injuries, a lot of them are going to have some irreversible brain damage.”
The air conditioner in the trailer was not working, officials said. And the high temperature in San Antonio on Saturday was a sweltering 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Unfortunately, some of them were severely overheated, and that was a refrigerated truck with no refrigeration,” Hood said. “So the inside of the truck was just austere condition that nobody was going to survive in it. So we were very fortunate that they were found because if they would have spent another night in that environment, we would have 38 people who would not have survived.”
Authorities don’t know where the trailer is from or how long it was parked at Walmart, but they are reviewing surveillance video. Police are also searching the area with helicopters after some people ran into the woods.
The driver was arrested, but police did not provide any information on him.
“The driver and whoever else we find is involved in this will be facing state and federal charges,” McManus said.
McManus said such incidents are not isolated.