{"id":418753,"date":"2026-07-31T00:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418753\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:45:12","slug":"venezuela-quake-survivor-receives-skin-grafts-funded-by-san-diego-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418753\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela quake survivor receives skin grafts funded by San Diego viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SOLANA BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) &#8211; An 18-year-old Venezuela earthquake survivor has received life-saving skin grafts, made possible in part by donations from ABC 10News viewers following an earlier report on his family&#8217;s ordeal.<\/p>\n<p>Diego Ramirez was in a 2nd-floor home of a 9-story apartment complex in Playa Grande, outside Caracas, when a June earthquake caused it to collapse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel everything shaking too hard,&#8221; Ramirez said.<\/p>\n<p>He fell through the floor and was trapped in the rubble for 10 hours before rescuers pulled him out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was telling myself you will survive, and I was trying to calm myself down, because I want to survive,&#8221; Ramirez said.<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez suffered 3 spinal fractures. His right leg, trapped for 10 hours, was nearly lost but saved by a procedure that left an open incision requiring a skin graft to close the wound. The skin grafts are in short supply in Venezuela.<\/p>\n<p>His aunt, Adriana Prag of Solana Beach, lost her 14-year-old niece, Sofia, in the same earthquake. Sophia&#8217;s body was discovered hugging her godmother.<\/p>\n<p>After our initial report on the family&#8217;s story in late June, donations poured into a <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/solidaridad-con-rosa-maria-y-sus-hijos\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GoFundMe campaig<\/a>n set up to help them. That support allowed Prag to purchase 4 cadaver skin grafts at a cost of more than $6,000. The grafts were flown last week from Miami to Caracas, where 3 of them were transplanted onto Ramirez&#8217;s leg. The fourth is expected to be transplanted next week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was critical, needed,&#8221; Prag said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked how the skin grafts were doing, Ramirez said his doctor reported the leg is looking better.<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez&#8217;s recovery is expected to be lengthy. He still has to undergo back surgery, but Prag said the outpouring of support from San Diego made a critical difference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It shows people care in times when others most need it,&#8221; Prag said.<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez expressed gratitude for the help he received.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So kind, so grateful, other people just helping me \u2026 It\u2019s amazing,&#8221; Ramirez said.<\/p>\n<p>This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOLANA BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) &#8211; An 18-year-old Venezuela earthquake survivor has received life-saving skin grafts, made possible in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[167450,74,76,75,9298,152293],"class_list":["post-418753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-earthquake-survivor","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-venezuela","tag-venezuela-earthquake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}