A mom of three drowned while trying to help her 12-year-old daughter swim in a Tennessee lake after the family didn’t heed the warning signs about the dangerous waters because they only speak Spanish, her loved ones said.
Amarilia “Lileana” Vamaca died after slipping into Percy Priest Lake in Nashville on Aug. 4 to try and help her daughter swim — only to start struggling herself, WTVF reported.
Her husband, Martin Ambrosio, was swimming in a different part of the lake and by the time he rushed over to help, his wife had already jumped into the body of water.
“I asked, where is your mom, where is your mom? [His daughter] said she went into the water already,” he told the station in Spanish.
Half a dozen bystanders sprung into action to help Vamaca with some even performing CPR until paramedics arrived.
The mother of three was transported to the hospital but taken off life support later that week.
While her family remains heartbroken over her death, Ambrosio has used it as an opportunity to advocate for signage to protect the Spanish-speaking community.
Since he and his family do not speak English, the signs posted at the lake warning swimmers about the waters were not heeded.
“We don’t know how to read English [and] we didn’t see any signs,” Ambrosio said, adding it would have been helpful to have clear signs noting dangerous parts of the lake in English and Spanish.
The loss of his wife of 15 years has been particularly hard on Ambrosio.
“We’re sad,” he told the station. “She was an open person, smiling, happy, a joker. She liked to be friends with people…”
His family has turned to their faith to find comfort following her sudden death.
“We hope in the name of God that God will give us the strength to be able to overcome it, to be able to move forward,” he said.
A GoFundMe was set up to help cover the costs of returning Vacama’s body to her native Guatemala. By Tuesday morning it had raised over $6,000 of its $10,000 goal.
