Former World Boxing Champion Hector “Macho” Camacho Shot in Face in Critical Condition in Puerto Rico (Update: Camacho Ruled Braindead)

Former world boxing champion Hector “Macho” Camacho is in critical condition but expected to survive as he was shot in the face in a drive by shooting while sitting in his car in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The driver of Comacho’s vehicle was fatally shot and killed. Camacho was shot in the jaw while riding as a passenger in a car on Tuesday night and is listed in critical condition at Centro Medico in San Juan. According to hospital reports, The former champ was struck once in the left jaw and the bullet traveled down his neck and lodged in his right shoulder. The bullet fractured his 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae. Police have one suspect is in custody.

Former world boxing champion Hector “Macho” Camacho was shot in the face as he sat in a car outside the Puerto Rican capital Tuesday, and doctors said he was in serious condition but expected to survive.

Another man in the car, whose relationship to the 50-year-old Camacho wasn’t immediately known, died in the attack in which at least one gunman opened fire on their vehicle in the city of Bayamon, according to a statement from police.

Camacho was rushed to Centro Medico, the trauma center in San Juan, where he was in critical but stable condition, Dr. Ernesto Torres, the hospital director, told reporters.

The bullet apparently struck him in the jaw but exited his head and lodged in his right shoulder and fractured two vertebrae, Torres said. The doctor said the boxer, who was trailed by drug and alcohol problems during a career that included some high-profile bouts, could be paralyzed from the shooting.

UPDATE I: Hector Camacho ruled clinically braindead by doctors.

Three-time world boxing champion Hector “Macho” Camacho is brain dead following a drive-by shooting in Puerto Rico, a doctor said on Thursday.   Camacho, 50, whose speed and flamboyance made him a top attraction in the 1980s and 1990s, is in a coma and unresponsive, said Dr. Ernesto Torres, director of the Rio Piedras Medical Center.   Camacho “is clinically brain dead,” Torres told reporters. “The tests showed a flat line, without any type of activity.”

Puerto Rico Votes to Become the 51st US State

The people in Puerto Rico voted Tuesday in a non-binding referandum to become the 51st US state. Nearly 80% of the island’s electorate took part in the referendum and with almost all the votes counted, almost 54% have voted to change the island’s relationship with the US from a US territory to a US state.

 The measure will require approval from the US Congress, but President Barack Obama has said he will respect the vote.

The island is currently a US territory, which uses the dollar and whose citizens travel on US passports.

But it does not return senators to the US Congress and is represented in Washington by a non-voting delegate.

Almost 80% of the island’s electorate took part in the referendum, the fourth in the past 45 years.

With almost all the votes counted, almost 54% voted to change the island’s relationship with the US.