[...] the 27-year-old Mexican laborer climbed with his friends into a pitch-black, metal tractor-trailer compartment that lacked ventilation — a deadly oven that would claim 10 lives. Mexican consulate and U.S. officials later told AP the correct spelling was Lara Vega. Lara Vega, a spare, muscular man with a trim mustache and thick black eyebrows, said all his friends survived as far as he knew, though some were hospitalized. Before the trucked reached its final destination, he said, the immigrants were given different colored tape "to identify to the waiting smugglers which group they would be picking up." The man, identified only by his initials, said he did not see who opened the trailer doors nor did he see the truck driver, according to a criminal complaint filed against the driver. Mexican consular officials say they are providing legal representation for the survivors and that Lara Vega had been visited by one.