Jhonna Ledezma nearly died as she and her family traversed the infamous Darien Gap — an imposing jungle terrain with swamps, steep mountains, and muddy trails that migrants use to cross between Colombia and Panama — on their way to the United States from Ecuador in 2023.

The Ledezmas were somewhere outside the Pinogana District and El Real corregimientos when Jhonna fell into the Chucunaque River, a long S-shaped river in southern Panama known for harboring poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and armed drug traffickers. Ledezma and her family had been walking for several days without food or water. They were attempting to cross a steep muddy path when her tired legs gave out. She remembers being too weary to swim as the cold river water washed over her face and body.

Ledezma’s husband watched in horror as her body sank into the river. He left their two children — a seven-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son who suffers from microtia — on the riverbank and rushed to save his wife from drowning. Ledezma’s husband said he grabbed her by her hair and pulled her out of the water. She was shaking as she reemerged from the water. “I thought that was it for me,” Ledezma told Jacobin in Spanish.