Amarilia Vamaca, Nashville mom who couldn’t read English drowns trying to save 12 year old daughter at Percy Priest Lake. Parent and Spanish speaking husband, Martin Ambrosio hailed from Guatemala.
A mother of three has tragically drowned as she sought to save her 12 year old daughter after swimming in a Tennessee lake after the family failing to heed warning signs forbidding swimming because of dangerous waters.
The mom’s drowning follows the family only speaking Spanish and unable to read or speak English.
Amarilia ‘Lileana’ Vamaca died after slipping into Percy Priest Lake in Nashville on Aug. 4 in a bid to help her daughter swim — only for the mom struggling herself, WTVF reported.
‘Where is your mom?!’
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.
‘A boy brought her out, but she had already passed away,’ Ambrosio told the outlet.
Bystanders attempted performing CPR until paramedics arrived.
The mother of three was transported to the hospital but taken off life support later that week.
Vamaca’s heartbroken has since advocated for signage to be bi-lingual in a bid 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.
Petition to have signs bilingual
‘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,’ the father told WTVF. ‘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,’ the devastated husband told WMSV.
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 $6,332 of its $10,000 goal.
