Elian Gonzalez’s doomed mother gave the boy her last drops of fresh water and her coat as they drifted on an inner tube after their boat sank on the trip from Cuba to Florida, a survivor of the tragedy said yesterday.
“She just wanted to save her son,” said Nivaldo Fernandez, who was rescued Thanksgiving Day just hours before Elian was found.
Fernandez, 33, told Miami’s Spanish-language Radio Mambi that several people floated for hours on three inner tubes after the motorboat sank.
He was on one inner tube, while the mom, Elisabet Broton, and the then-5-year-old boy clung to another one.
“She kept saying, ‘My son, my son,'” Fernandez said.
“She asked him, ‘Are you cold?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I’m cold, mama,’ so she took off her coat,” he said.
“She gave him water.
“We all fought to save ourselves, but she only wanted to save the life of her son.
“At every moment she looked after the boy until she lost her life,” Fernandez said.
“He was very quiet. He never cried.”
Fernandez said that the inner tubes drifted apart in the night and that was the last he ever saw of Elian’s mother — who drowned sometime later.
The Coast Guard says 14 people left Cuba on the small motorboat, which was captained by Broton’s boyfriend.
Seven people died when the boat sank and seven managed to cling for a time to inner tubes taken along as life rafts, officials say.
The only three to survive were Elian, Fernandez and his 23-year-old girlfriend.
Fernandez and his girlfriend held on to the same inner tube and were found off Key Biscayne. Elian was rescued by fishermen 25 miles north off Fort Lauderdale.
Asked about the raging controversy over whether Elian should be sent home to live with his father or stay in Miami, Fernandez said, “He has more possibility of a future here.
“He has adapted and now the family that is looking after him are the family of his father.”