Coast Guard picks up nine Cubans who then tell officers they took pills

BY JENNIFER BABSON

  When a Coast Guard boat intercepted them Thursday, nine Cuban rafters were facing the same disappointing fate as thousands of others caught on the open sea: a trip back to the island.

  Then they told Coast Guard officers they had taken pills.

  Not long after, they began to look very ill.

  So worried officers took them all to shore near Islamorada, where ambulances rushed them to hospitals.

  A few hours later, all nine were doing fine -- and they were on American soil. Their apparent momentary sickness had gotten them into the United States.

  Under the government's ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are generally returned home. But those who make it to land -- no matter how they get here -- are allowed in.

  The Coast Guard intercepted Thursday's migrants -- who were in a small boat with an engine -- about 5:30 p.m. near Alligator Reef, a few miles off Islamorada.

  By 6:45 p.m., they were ashore and ready to be transported to hospitals in Tavernier and Marathon.

  ''Their medical condition was serious enough for the Coast Guard personnel on scene to think that a medical evacuation was the prudent thing to do,'' said Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman.

  Desperate measures by Cuban migrants and others facing interdiction off South Florida's shores to reach land are not typical, but are not unheard of.

  In the past, Cuban migrants have been known to swallow glass or gasoline in hopes of forcing a medical trip to shore; in other cases, smugglers or their passengers have drawn machetes or held small children over the sides of boats to try to scare authorities.

  No one knew Thursday night what had happened to the Cubans -- if anything.

  ''They were sick from something that they allegedly ingested, we are not sure what that is yet,'' said William Wagner III, Islamorada's fire chief.

  ''They were lethargic, they looked sick, they were obviously not healthy-looking,'' Wagner said of the migrants, four of whom were deemed to be in ''critical'' need of medical attention.

  The group included ''a couple of young adults,'' according to Wagner, but no children. The migrants were believed to have been at sea for several days.

  By Thursday night the migrants were chatting with doctors, and by all accounts were doing just fine.

  It still wasn't clear when the group would be placed in federal custody for immigration processing.

  A few hours earlier, fate was pointing them south -- back to Cuba on a Coast Guard cutter.

  Not now.