 She was flown to the United States by her parents, in hopes that treatment would help her; she fought infections, and after the last one, doctors told her parents that her body would not resist another infection treatment.She returned to Puerto Rico, where she died on the morning of November 17, 2002.Nayda Figueroa, an epidemiologist for Puerto Rico's Cancer Registry, stated that research showed Vieques' cancer rate from 1995 to 1999 was 31 percent higher than for the main island.