Three Cuban migrants are helped ashore in Broward County and report that four of their fellow rafters died at sea.

BY JERRY BERRIOS, HECTOR FLORIN AND NOAH BIERMAN

As violent Caribbean waves pounded her flimsy inner tube, Milena González Martínez watched her husband and three others drown.

For five days she would think about their deaths, while struggling for her own survival on a perilous, weeklong journey from Cuba to Florida.

''I saw everyone drown in front of me,'' said González Martínez, of Havana, speaking softly from her hospital bed through swollen lips as she savored a cup of hot tea Thursday night.

González Martínez's trip ended when a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter scooped her up just offshore Thursday along Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. She started out with seven others -- in black rubber tubes strung together with cloth -- when she left Cuba on March 17.

Four men died, among them her husband, and one is officially missing. The U.S. Coast Guard called off a search for the missing rafter around 5:45 p.m. but planned to renew the search today.

As live footage hit TV screens Thursday, several local families watched nervously, looking for relatives among the newly arrived migrants. The fate of at least three other groups of rafters who left Cuba between last Sunday and Wednesday still is not known, said family members who spoke to The Herald.

They may have been intercepted by Cuban authorities or arrested in the Bahamas, family members speculate. Or they still may be struggling at sea.

''Nothing is a sure thing,'' said José Basulto, founding member of Brothers to the Rescue. He said he was contacted by a South Florida family whose loved ones left last Wednesday from a Havana beach and, apparently, were intercepted.

''The possibility of them making it out to the open sea is also scary, suicidal I'd say,'' Basulto said. ``The weather conditions have been horrible.''

The three who arrived Thursday were weak and thirsty. They had run out of water Monday and had begun drinking urine.

''Where am I? Where am I?'' one of the rescued men, Carlos Bringiere Hernández, asked after he struggled to shore with rescuers. He had told his family he was leaving to buy cigarettes when he left Cuba last week.

''You're in Pompano,'' replied Lilian Garcia, 33, a beachside hotel employee who ran out to help. ``You're in Florida. You're going to be fine.''

TAKEN TO HOSPITAL

The survivors were taken to Fort Lauderdale's Holy Cross Hospital.

Broward Sheriff's Office and Coast Guard officials got the first reports of the wave-tossed inner tubes just before noon Thursday. Within minutes, tourists were running to the beach.

With the help of a diver, a Coast Guard helicopter swooped above the ocean to grab González Martínez, 37.

The two men -- Bringiere Hernández, 38, and William Villavicencio Pérez, 31 -- made it closer to the beach.

One of the men appeared exhausted, but the other was trying to swim to shore. Garcia, an assistant manager at Villas by the Sea hotel, said she urged two bystanders to help. They plunged into the sea, just north of the fishing pier near Commercial Boulevard.

''The police didn't want us to touch them, but I didn't care,'' Garcia said.

Bringiere Hernández appeared OK.

''He kept saying to me he wanted to eat, he wanted water,'' Garcia said.

BSO detectives said the the survivors told them the group of seven men and one woman left Playa Jibacoa, east of Havana, the night of March 17.

Northeastern winds have churned up the waters in the past few days, with gusts reaching 35 miles an hour, said Kim Brabander, meteorologist with National Weather Service.

''In the past, we've had boats capsize with six-eight foot seas,'' he said.

The inner tubes, powered with a worn wooden oar, had little chance against the sea.

''Trying to make it to the U.S. in this type of vessel is a recipe for disaster,'' said Coast Guard Lt. Tony Russell, who put the seas at 10 to 12 feet.

LOOKING FOR BODIES

Late Thursday, the Coast Guard had a jet, a helicopter, several boats from Lake Worth and Fort Lauderdale, and an 87-foot cutter looking for bodies, Russell said.

Both González Martínez and Bringiere Hernández, said they left Cuba for economic reasons.

González Martínez left her 14-year-old twin sons in Havana with her mother.

Bringiere Hernández said he was fired from his job as a paramedic after his first unsuccessful attempt to leave the island.

This was his 14th try, he said. ''I can't be over there. How does one live without working?'' said Bringiere Hernández. ``I lived like a poor man.''

Herald staff writers Sam Nitze and Jeannette Rivera-Lyles and The Associated Press contributed to this report.