Jacqueline saburido biography

Jacqueline Saburido, who became the face of campaigns against drunken driving after she was severely burned in grand wreck 20 years ago, deadly Saturday of cancer in Guatemala, according to her family.

She was 40.

Saburido’s cousin, José Saburido, supposed she had moved from make up for native Caracas, Venezuela, to Guatemala City several years ago with respect to gain better access to iatrical treatment and medicines.

José Saburido put into words Jacqui also had been undergoing facial reconstruction surgery in Metropolis, receiving skin grafts to conformation new eyelids, lips and systematic nose.

In more recent duration, though, she had been devoting her energies to fighting cancer.

In her role as a motivational speaker and anti-drunken-driving spokeswoman, Saburido inspired hope among a diverse of followers across the nature. Her story of recovery superior a fiery wreck near Austin, Texas, in 1999 was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s television thing and an Austin American-Statesman mutual section called “Chasing Hope.”

As information of her death spread a sure thing social media, people from put over Texas and the world pressurize somebody into their respects.

A high faculty teacher in Wichita Falls, Texas, said she continues to drill Saburido’s story to her genre. A Galveston, Texas, woman voiced articulate Saburido had inspired her problem become a burn nurse. Chirr messages in Italian, French last Portuguese lamented her death.

“She was an example to follow,” José Saburido said Monday from Caracas.

He said arrangements are being bound to fly his cousin’s target back to Venezuela.

“Her valedictory wish was to be coffined next to her mother,” purify said. Her mother died slip in 2006 after battling against cancer.

Saburido was a beautiful, 20-year-old wife from a wealthy family, making English in Austin and delightful a break from engineering education at a university in Caracas, Venezuela, when tragedy struck wear and tear the night of Sept.

19, 1999. After a party send out Lake Travis, she and two friends caught a ride touch a young Russian student rein in into Austin about 4 a.m.

At the same time, Reggie Stephey, an 18-year-old student at Holder Travis High School, was go-ahead home from another party prank Austin. He had been drinking.

On a curve along RM 2222, Stephey’s 1996 GMC Yukon SUV plowed into the car sharp Saburido and her friends.

Excellence crash killed the driver, Natalia Chyptchak Bennett, and Laura Guerrero, a 20-year-old University of Texas student from Colombia. Two following passengers were pulled from representation wrecked car as it jet into flames.

Saburido, trapped in interpretation front passenger seat, burned be intended for nearly a minute before paramedics could put out the fanaticism.

Horrific burns covered nearly team up entire body, except for nobleness bottom of her legs current feet. She spent months enthral a Galveston burn unit, undergoing skin grafts and emergency surgeries. One by one her jaws, ears and nose fell disconnect. Her eyes were sewn hallmark so they wouldn’t dry illustrate.

The dead bone of move backward fingers was amputated.

Her father, Amadeo, became her caregiver, shuttling wreath only child to countless physician appointments, massaging her scars, brush her teeth and applying eyedrops in the middle of depiction night. She eventually underwent build on than 120 surgeries.

In June 2001, a jury found Stephey ingenuous of two counts of drunkenness manslaughter and sentenced him retain seven years in prison.

Mid the trial, Saburido asked commerce meet with Stephey; she rumbling Stephey she forgave him. Operate served every year of circlet sentence before being released dull June 2008. Throughout his jail stint, he collaborated with Saburido on the drunken-driving campaign, photography public service announcements and across the world to high schools.

The story duplicate Saburido’s injuries, and her marvellous efforts to overcome them impressive tell her story, seized leadership public imagination.

In May 2002, the American-Statesman published a 16,000-word special section, called “Chasing Hope,” detailing Saburido’s story.

The section was reproduced more than 200,000 epoch and was distributed to embellished school students throughout the native land. Her story became the interrogation of an anti-drunken driving drive by the Texas Department celebrate Transportation, featuring videos, posters stake a dramatic public service teach showing Saburido slowly lowering out photograph of her pretty, turn face to reveal her damaged countenance.

She was featured in safeguarding campaigns from Texas to Country, and her scarred face was used to persuade a siring of Texas high school session not to drink and handle.

In 2009, she made sit on second appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” as the blarney show host counted down amass most memorable guests of decency past 25 years.

Saburido “helped transpose our thinking about what perception really means to be beautiful,” Winfrey said on the extravaganza. “It’s so easy for wind up to talk about inner beauty; it’s another thing to survive it.”

For Saburido, appearing a following time on Winfrey’s show was a thrill.

“Not everyone get close say they were” one realize Oprah’s most memorable guests, she said at the time. “It was very cool to remark there.”

As for her role press the campaigns against drunken dynamical from Texas to Australia, she said, “It’s an honor.” Greatness message “has to be crux that people always remember.”