Collier family grieves man who died from carbon monoxide after Hurricane Irma

Yusdel Moreno Iglesias died before he could finish fulfilling the dreams he had for his family.

He wanted another child with his girlfriend of 14 years. A boy, if he could choose. He wanted to buy a truck for himself and a house for his family. He wanted to take his 9-year-old daughter to Cuba to celebrate her birthday in December and see her grow up to become a veterinarian.

“He had so many plans, so many dreams,” his girlfriend, Lidicis Garcia Villafaña, said in Spanish. “We both did. For our family. There was so much left he wanted to do.”

Villafaña found her 35-year-old boyfriend face down and unresponsive in the garage of their Golden Gate Estates home on Sept. 11.

The previous night, around 9 p.m., as Hurricane Irma's fury rolled north out of Collier County, he told his girlfriend he wanted to cool off in the car and charge his phone and his daughter’s tablet.

Villafaña woke up around 7:30 the next morning and realized her boyfriend wasn’t in the house. She went to the garage and found him on the floor.  

“I touched him, I tried to move him, I yelled for him,” Villafaña said. “It was too late.”

Their daughter Elizabeth went to the garage when she heard her mother’s screams. Before the girl could see her father, Villafaña grabbed her and ran outside.

Neighbors stayed with them while others tried to find deputies.

“We had no cell service, and I couldn’t call 911,” Villafaña said. “I was desperate, standing in the middle of the street with my daughter trying to call for help.”

Iglesias' death was the first Hurricane Irma-related death in Collier County after the storm made landfall on Marco Island onSept. 10. His cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Collier County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Villafaña said they didn't have power at their house and couldn't open the garage door. A neighbor later showed her how to open it manually.

"We didn't know it was possible to open the door without power," she said. "Now we know so many things. This is a lesson that can maybe help another family."

As Iglesias’ family recovers from the hurricane, they are also coping with their loss. 

“We survived the hurricane just fine,” Villafaña said. “Yusdel said so long as we were all safe and together, everything else would be OK.”

In their youth, Iglesias and Villafaña lived close to each other in the Camagüey province in Cuba. They attended the same high school and had mutual friends. He went off to the armed forces, and she went to pharmacy school. When they reunited about three years later, he convinced her to be his girlfriend.

“A mutual friend tried to set us up,” Villafaña said. “I said, ‘You’re not talking about that guy, are you?’ Yusdel was my same age. I thought he was immature. But my friend convinced me to give him a chance. I never regretted it.”

Iglesias moved to Collier County in 2004. Villafaña joined him in 2005. He worked as a truck driver, and she works for an oxygen regulator company in Lehigh Acres.

The couple lived in different areas of the county over the years and most recently rented a house in Golden Gate Estates. Villafaña doesn't plan to live there anymore.

“My daughter doesn’t want to go back there, and neither do I,” Villafaña said. “We can’t be there.”

The two will live at Iglesias’ father’s house in the Naples Manor community. On Monday morning, family members and friends filed in and out of the house to pay their respects and check on the family. Iglesias’ funeral was Saturday.

Villafaña remembers her boyfriend as an affectionate, playful person. He used to sneak into the bathroom when she showered, peek behind the curtain to scare her and laugh when she screamed.

“He lived for me and for Elizabeth,” she said. “If he got home from work before I did, he would help with the cooking. We talked about our day when he got home from work every night. He’d play with our daughter. We’d go get groceries together. We lost such an important part of our lives. There’s no way to prepare for that.”

Iglesias’ father, Francisco Moreno, said he wasn’t prepared for the loss.

“We're meant to bury our parents," Moreno said. “We're not meant to bury our children. My brain hasn’t begun to absorb this.”

When the man hangs his head and leans against the back of a sofa in his living room for support, his granddaughter is at his side, kissing his forehead and putting a hand on his shoulder.

He pulled her into his side and said, “This is what’s left of him. We have to move forward for her. It’s all for her.”

When she talks about her boyfriend’s death, Villafaña promises her daughter she won’t cry anymore.

She promises she’ll work hard to make sure her daughter has a good foundation and gets ahead in life.

“That’s what Yusdel would have wanted,” Villafaña said. “He was strong, he was a fighter. He worked to give us everything we needed. I’ll keep working to make sure she gets ahead.”

Elizabeth asked her mom what it means to “get ahead.”

“Well,” Villafaña said. “It means that you grow up healthy, that you go to school every day, that you learn and study, that you behave and be a good girl. Your dad wanted all of that for you. Didn’t he tell you that all the time?”