Air quality stressed by teen who suffered near death experience

UPDATE: 6:27 p.m.

18-year-old Cristian Garza has been fighting an inside battle.

“I’ve always had to live with it since I was a little kid,” Garza said. “I’d have to use an asthma inhaler pretty much every other day. When I went to school, I had to bring multiple medications just to be stable every day.”

He said this time last year his fight took on a new level, when what started as a cough turned out to be a collapsed lung.

“As soon as I went to the doctor, they were screaming out ‘code blue,” Garza said. “And I didn’t know what that meant, but they automatically gave me a room. They gave me a lot of medication, [and] gave me adrenaline just to get the medication in my body. And they had me hooked up to machines just to help me breathe.”

But since then, Garza said he’s been hooked on something else, raising awareness for clean air for places like his hometown of Mecca.

The area, Marina Barragan of the Sierra Club said, is known for air quality issues stemming from as east as the Salton Sea, and blowing in from western Riverside County.

“I went to give presentations to a middle school class, and I spoke to seven classes,” Barragan said. “And in every single class I asked them, ‘How many you yourself, or do you know someone that has asthma?’ Every child rose their hand in six out of the seven classes. And I told them to keep their hands up and look around the room, because that’s not normal. It’s not normal for me to be speaking to classes of 30 students, and have 25 out of 30 students raise their hands.”

Both Garza and Barragan said they’ve also spent time every month traveling to speak in front of South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) officials, ahead of a vote for a long-term air quality plan.

SCAQMD officials said the plan has regulations, but also incentives for those pushing towards clean air.

“They will include such things as further emission reductions from diesel backup generators, zero or near zero residential appliances, lower emission equipment for restaurants and other such measures,” SCAQMD spokesperson Sam Atwood said. “We believe that we need incentives, primarily for small businesses, residential homeowners and other residents in the region to fill the gap. And to accelerate the pace of clean equipment deployment that we couldn’t accomplish through regulations alone.”

But activists said the plan could take a hit on residents’ wallets, with potential new taxes.

“They’re choosing to tax front-line communities, low-income communities, instead of having multi-billion oil companies pay for the pollution and harm they are causing front-line communities,” Barragan said.

But Garza said he’ll continue to be a voice for those like him.

“I was the lucky one when it came to it,” Garza said. “And I realize, I’m just trying to fight for all of the kids that didn’t have the day that I had, or made it through the day I did.”

Atwood said the plan would not have an effect on lower-income communities.

He said air quality officials are expected to vote on the plan in February.

———-

ORIGINAL STORY: 5:00 p.m.

A Mecca teenager dealing with respiratory issues throughout his life, which led to a near-death experience, is now involved with a local organization that is working to raise awareness about air quality, ahead of a vote for a long-term air quality plan for Southern California.

Zak Dahlheimer spoke to the teenager on Wednesday to learn more about his history, his mission and the upcoming vote for the long-term plan to improve air quality for all those dealing with respiratory issues such as asthma.

Find out what the long-term air quality plan will mean for residents living in the Coachella Valley, coming up on KESQ News Channel 3 at 6 p.m. and on CBS Local 2 at 6:30 p.m.