Conroe boy, 11, dies overnight after enjoying first snowfall
Cristian Pavon Pineda played in the snow Monday after it blanketed the lawn of his family’s mobile home in Conroe. As the 11-year-old native of Honduras experienced his first snowfall, his mom took out her cellphone to shoot video and snap photos of the boy, who was covered by a red hoodie.
It was his “first time (seeing snow). That’s why he was excited outside,” said his mother, Maria Elisa Pineda. “Everything was well. He was happy that day. He was not at all sick.”
The boy’s gloves became soaked, so his mom brought him in after a half-hour. She put him to bed around 11 p.m. alongside his 3year-old stepbrother in their sinConroe gle-wide mobile home, which had little insulation and had lost power early Monday, his family said.
That night, temperatures in the region dipped into the low teens. When Cristian’s mom went to check on him around 2 p.m. the next day after sleeping in herself, the sixth-grader did not awaken.
“He was already dead,” said a solemn Maria Elisa Pineda, 34, speaking from the living room of a relative with whom the family has been staying since the child’s death.
police are investigating the cause of death, and an autopsy was performed Thursday, said Sgt. Jeff Smith, a police spokesman. Investigators stayed at the home until around 8 p.m. Tuesday and performed drug tests on Pineda and the boy’s stepfather, Manuel Moreno, which is a standard part of the investigation.
“We will not know the cause until the full autopsy is released,” Smith said.
Authorities have reported about 30 deaths in weather-related incidents during this week’s sub-freezing temperatures and massive power outages. Causes range from hypothermia to fires, carbon monoxide poisoning and traffic accidents.
Seven hypothermia deaths
were reported Friday by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, which a day earlier reported three such deaths, including a 75year-old Vietnam veteran who died after going outside his Crosby home to get to his last available oxygen tank in his truck.
Of the newly disclosed fatalities, three individuals died in Houston apartments and one each passed away in a Houston hospital emergency room, at an unspecified residence, in the living room of another unspecified residence and a backyard shed. It was unclear when each individual died.
“This was a man-made disaster that has cut lives short,” County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a tweet. “We are now reporting 10 hypothermia deaths in Harris County, 600+ carbon monoxide cases, and still counting. When the dust settles, people deserve answers and accountability.”
Not all the deceased individuals had been identified in records. The ones who were identified included Gilbert Rivera, Catherine Dillingham, Norah Pledger and Peter Labbe.
All but one individual had contributory causes of death listed in case records. The primary cause of each death was ruled to be hypothermia.
The Galveston County medical examiner Thursday reported seven deaths in that county and two more in neighboring Brazoria County. Cold exposure was confirmed as the cause of death for a 62-year-old Galveston man, a 50-year old Hitchcock man, an 88-year old Bacliff woman and a 39year-old Angleton man. Carbon monoxide poisoning was believed to be the cause of two other deaths.
In Conroe, about 40 miles north of downtown Houston, Maria Elisa Pineda tried to make sense of her son’s death.
Not a sickly child, the Bozman Intermediate student didn’t complain about feeling ill the night before he died, his mother said.
She and Moreno, 38, immediately dialed 911 after
discovering the boy was unresponsive, the family said. Trying to find someone who spoke Spanish, a dispatcher put them on hold, the family added.
Smith, the police spokesman, said Pineda and Moreno have been cooperative throughout the investigation. “By all other means, he was a normal, healthy child,” Smith said.
Pineda and her son came
to the United States from Honduras about two years ago.
“He liked it a lot being over here,” Pineda said, adding the family would dine out and shop in Houston on the weekends.
In his free time, Cristian would make illustrations, his favorites inspired by maps he found online. He had expressed an interest in piloting planes when he
grew up, his mom mentioned with a smile.
Cristian also embraced his new role of big brother to her and Moreno’s 11month-old son, Rone.
“He loved him a lot. He would care a lot for him,” she said.
She is trying to arrange for her son’s body to be transported to Honduras, where his grandparents and other family still live. Pineda and Cristian’s father are divorced, and he has been notified of the death.
“He (Cristian) longed to see them,” she said, referring to his grandparents. “Bury him and have them see him one last time.”
Organized by Moreno’s sister-in-law, Jaliza Yera, a GoFundMe site has been established to help with expenses: gofundme.com/f/ ayuda-para-cristian-pavonpara-enviar-el-cuerpo.
Born in the coastal city of Tela, Honduras, Cristian often promised his mom he would work for them to return to the country.
He used to talk of building her a casita, a small house, where they would all live.
“That way to help you to always be together,” she said he would often tell her. Shifting her gaze away, she added, “But it was not to be. Those wishes were not fulfilled.”