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Cuban doctor who treated Bay of Pigs prisoner longs to learn his fate

 
Maria Fernandez, 80, in her living room last week, recalls her time in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Maria Fernandez, 80, in her living room last week, recalls her time in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Published May 31, 2016

TAMPA — Ever since the 55th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion passed last month, Maria Fernandez has been combing through newspaper accounts of events honoring surviving veterans of the failed 1961 attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.

And as happens every year during her annual search, Fernandez has yet to find a mention of the veteran she longs to track down. But she will keep trying.

Fernandez, now 80, was once a doctor in Cuba.

Hours before the Bay of Pigs prisoners were to be released to the United States on Dec. 24, 1962, she was brought one prisoner in severe pain due to a kidney stone.

The message from the accompanying Cuban soldiers who had no idea what was wrong with the patient: We can't risk him dying on a plane. Diagnose and treat him quickly, or the prisoner might have to stay in Cuba.

Thanks to Fernandez, the prisoner lived to get on the plane for Miami. And when Fernandez moved to Tampa in 1970, she began a quest to find him.

It's not to seek his thanks. She wants to finish her duty as his doctor.

"I'd like to know if he received treatment when he made it home and is okay," Fernandez said. His condition wasn't fatal, she said, but could have been without further treatment.

She never did get the patient's name. Soldiers refused to allow them to speak beyond the medical treatment.

But she still hopes they can find each other.

She was at San Antonios de los Baños Hospital just outside of Havana when he was brought to her.

He had light skin and dark hair and eyes. Fernandez estimates he was in his early 40s then.

Like all the members of Brigade 2506 — the name of the Bay of Pigs troops — he was born in Cuba and residing in the United States.

And he was worth $50,000 to the Cuban government.

"They didn't care about his life," said Fernandez. "They cared what his life was worth."

Each prisoner was assigned a dollar amount based on rank, said Pedro A. Freyre, a Miami lawyer whose brother Ernesto Freyre Jr. was among the captured Bay of Pigs troops and whose lawyer father, Ernesto Freyre Sr., helped negotiate the prisoners' release.

"Values ranged from $25,000 to $500,000," said Pedro Freyre.

Cuba was ultimately paid $53 million in U.S. medical supplies collected from the private sector for the release of 1,113 soldiers.

Fernandez was worried as soon as she met the patient. If he couldn't fly home right then, she feared, would he get another chance? She had to quickly diagnose the cause of his pain and fever.

Despite not having access to an X-ray machine, it took Fernandez less than an hour to realize it was a kidney stone. She used morphine and anti-inflammatories to reduce his fever and pain enough that the soldiers were comfortable putting the prisoner on the plane.

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Fernandez hates the Castros.

She initially supported the Cuban revolution. Fulgencio Batista — who the Castros deposed in 1959 — was a brutal dictator. The revolution promised freedom.

When Fernandez was in her 20s she was part of a team smuggling medical supplies from Havana hospitals to the revolutionary forces in the Sierra Maestra mountains.

Then, following victory, the revolution embraced communism, a form of government Fernandez did not support.

She was practicing medicine in a mountain village without electricity or phones when she heard of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion days after it was over. Her heart sank, she said, knowing that it was the last time such an insurrection would be attempted.

Later, she was transferred to San Antonios de los Baños Hospital, where she met the prisoner.

Will she ever see him again? Miami's Hari Cruz-Bustillo can attest that anything is possible.

He was a member of Brigade 2506 who was shot twice in battle and nursed back to health by a kind doctor.

Years later, he was randomly paired with that doctor for a round of golf in the 1970s. The doctor, Hugo Escalante, lived five houses down from Cruz-Bustillo.

"I looked at him and thought, 'How do I know you?' " said Cruz-Bustillo. "When I realized it — wow."

As the Bay of Pigs prisoners walked onto the plane parked at San Antonio de los Baños Air Base, Fernandez watched from her hospital patio. She searched for her patient but was too far away to see their faces.

In 1970, she left Cuba for a new life in Tampa with her husband and two daughters. She became a pediatrician. And she never lost hope will she would find her Bay of Pigs patient.

After all, she chuckled, he might still need a followup.

"He may not even be alive," she said. "Maybe his family will read this and let me know how his life turned out. I hope it was good."

Contact Paul Guzzo at (813) 226-3394. Follow @PGuzzoTimes.