Former world champion boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho has fallen into a coma and may be diagnosed as brain dead, Puerto Rican media reported Wednesday.
Rafael Rodríguez Mercado of the Río Piedras Medical Center said Camacho’s brain had stopped functioning, according to Puerto Rican daily newspaper El Nuevo Día. The hospital director Ernesto Torres said the former boxer has fallen into a “deep coma” and his “outlook isn’t good,” El Nuevo Día correspondent Melisa Ortega tweeted.
But Torres stopped short of declaring Camacho completely brain dead, telling reporters in a videotaped press conference that there was enough brain activity to justify ordering more tests.
Camacho’s chances of recovery look increasingly unlikely as his condition continues to worsen. Torres said he told Camacho's mother to prepare for the worst case scenario.
"His recovery would be a medical miracle," Rodríguez Mercado said, according to El Nuevo Día. "Nothing can be done for him."
The bullet entered Camacho's face, bounced against a bone and fractured two of his vertebrae before lodging in his shoulder, Torres said, according to Primera Hora.
The man who accompanied Camacho in the car -- identified as 49-year-old Adrian Alberto Mojica Moreno -- was killed in the shooting. A family member close to Camacho told HuffPost Voces that the killers had targeted Moreno to settle a personal vendetta. Police found nine bags of cocaine on Moreno, according to El Nuevo Día.
Camacho's son, Héctor "El Machito," lamented the violence that has overtaken Puerto Rico in recent years in a public statement reported by El Nuevo Día.