A survivor of the deadly trip from near the Mexican border in a sweltering tractor-trailer says he lost consciousness while sweating profusely without water inside the pitch-black, ventilation-less compartment and awoke in a San Antonio hospital bed.

Adan Lalravega, 27, told The Associated Press on Monday that people cried and pleaded for water and that he heard childrens' voices whimper.

Lalravega also says he had been told by smugglers who hid him and six friends in a safe house on the border in Laredo, Texas, that they'd be riding in an air-conditioned space.

Instead, the Mexican laborer from Aguascalientes says that when they boarded the truck on a Laredo street Saturday night, it was already full of people. He says he couldn't see how many because it was so dark.

Ten people who were inside the tractor-trailer have died. The driver has been charged in the deaths.

Two of the people found alive in the tractor-trailer and transported to hospitals with extreme dehydration and heat stroke were released Monday afternoon.

Spokesman Don Finley at University Hospital in San Antonio says two of the seven patients who arrived there Sunday have been discharged. Finley says four men and one woman remain at the hospital in conditions ranging from good to critical.

At the San Antonio Military Medical Center on the Fort Sam Houston Army post, spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez says all five patients admitted to the hospital Sunday remain in treatment.

Spokeswoman Patti Tanner says none of the patients admitted to various Baptist Health System hospitals in San Antonio have been discharged.

The trip from Laredo to San Antonio is about two hours, and Lalravega says he and his friends got in the trailer between 10 and 11 p.m. He says he never saw the truck driver and was never offered water.

He says they were being charged $5,500 for the trip and the money was never collected.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.