Doubts arise over Elian's time in water, details of rescue

A doctor who examined Elian Gonzalez shortly after he was rescued on Thanksgiving Day told immigration authorities the boy probably had been in the water less than 24 hours, newly released Coast Guard records show.

The records, and interviews based on them, also cast doubt on the commonly told story of how the two adult survivors of the rafter tragedy came ashore.

A man listed in the documents as a witness told The Miami Herald Tuesday that he found Arianne Horta and Nivaldo Fernandez several miles out to sea and brought them to Crandon Park Marina so they would not be returned to Cuba.

The two survivors have insisted that they swam to shore by themselves, a story Horta repeated again this week.

The records, released to the paper in response to a request filed under the federal Freedom of Information Act, are unlikely to change the basic legal issues in the court battle over whether Elian Gonzalez is entitled to a political asylum hearing. But they show that six months after Elian was plucked from the sea there is still much that is not known for sure about the sinking of the boat that carried Elian, his mother, and 12 other people on an ill-fated journey to the United States.

Resolving those discrepancies could prove difficult. Only Horta, Fernandez, and Elian, who was then 5 years old, survived the sinking, and the documents suggest that Horta and Fernandez have changed some details of their account since they were interviewed by US authorities.

But Coast Guard officials also were cautious about the accuracy of information contained in the phone and radio logs provided to The Herald. "Many times, the information in the logs is hearsay," said a Coast Guard spokeswoman who asked that her name not be published.

According to the most oft-repeated version of the events, the boat in which Elian, his mother, Horta, 22, and her boyfriend, Fernandez, 33, were traveling capsized late at night Monday, Nov. 22. That would mean that Elian, Horta, and Fernandez spent more than 50 hours in the water before being rescued on the morning of Nov. 25, Thanksgiving Day.

There is little doubt that the boat left Cuba Nov. 22. Cuban authorities telexed the US Coast Guard that day reporting that a badly overloaded boat had left for the United States. And a phone bill shows that Elian's grandfather, Juan Gonzalez Hernandez, placed a collect call to his sister in Miami, Georgina Cid, at 9:01 p.m. that day to report that Elian and his mother were on their way to Miami.

But it is less clear what happened between that time and 6:21 a.m. Thanksgiving Day - the time listed on a Miami-Dade police report taken on the discovery at Crandon Park Marina of Horta and Fernandez. Elian was located about two hours later off Fort Lauderdale.

In an interview Tuesday, Horta repeated her version of events that she, Fernandez, and Elian were in the water from around 10 p.m. Monday Nov. 22 until their discovery Nov. 25.

A Coast Guard log entry at noon Nov. 25, however, contradicts Horta. It says the boat capsized "early Tuesday morning."

Another Coast Guard log entry written at 6:52 p.m. Nov. 25 reflects deep Border Patrol suspicion that the survivors could have been in the water since Monday night. It quotes an unidentified Border Patrol agent as saying it was "not believable that 5-year-old survived on raft for 3 days."

Yet, the same log entry notes that "Miami medical personnel" had indicated to the Border Patrol that Horta and Fernandez "look like they could have been out there for that long."

Another entry, this from Nov. 26, the day after the rescues, asserts that a doctor had said the boy had been in the water for much less time than the commonly believed version would suggest. "Doctor said the boy wasn't in the water 24 hrs," the entry says. The notation was made by an unidentified Coast Guard mission coordinator.

Inconsistencies about the timing of the capsizing are compounded by differing versions of how Horta and Fernandez reached shore. Horta, in a story The Herald published Nov. 28, was quoted as saying she and Fernandez were rescued by a boat. But in a story published Dec. 13, Horta left the impression she and Fernandez swam to shore. But a previously unreleased police report gave the name of a witness, Reniel Carmenate, who when contacted by The Herald Tuesday gave two accounts of how Horta and Fernandez were rescued, both of which differed from Horta's version.

In the first, Carmenate said that he and other people pulled Horta and Fernandez from an inner tube as it floated in the water near Crandon Park Marina on the west side of the Rickenbacker Causeway near Key Biscayne.

But when told that Horta claimed that she and Fernandez had swum to shore, Carmenate changed his story. "I guess I'll have to tell you what really happened," he said. "The real story is that we found them several miles off Key Biscayne."

He said he couldn't remember the exact spot but that it could have been as much as seven miles offshore. Carmenate said he and the others spotted Horta and Fernandez because they heard Horta screaming in the predawn darkness.

Carmenate said he took Horta and Fernandez to shore before calling authorities so the couple would not be automatically returned to Cuba. Cuban migrants intercepted at sea are generally repatriated while those who reach shore usually stay.