David Hernandez-Caballero keeps a 4-inch-thick binder near his desk that is filled with mementos from his trip to Maine a year ago.

The attorney with the Embassy of Honduras, in Washington, D.C., doesn’t refer to the binder as a scrapbook because the photos and papers inside are much too valuable to be called “scraps.”

What he has are pictures and records that document the tragic accident a year ago on Sept. 12 when 14 out of 15 foreign workers drowned after their van rolled off John’s Bridge and into the channel between Churchill and Eagle lakes in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Ten of the dead were from Honduras and four from Guatemala.

The keepsakes also serve to highlight Hernandez-Caballero’s own efforts to help relatives of the 10 Honduran victims deal with their grief and to ensure that personal belongings, including cash and wedding rings, were returned to the rightful heirs.

Moments after Honduran President Ricardo Maduro learned of the accident, Hernandez-Caballero was the person he called on to travel to Maine to oversee the investigation and handle all the arrangements for the safe return of the bodies to their homeland.

Among the documents Hernandez-Caballero has saved are copies of the victims’ birth certificates and copies of the birth certificates of the men’s relatives. All were needed to provide proof of Honduran citizenship and to establish family relationships.

The last year has been filled with gut-wrenching emotional moments he has shared with some of the families, in particular when relatives viewed the bodies or asked for details about how the men died.

Hernandez-Caballero said during a recent interview that he also has spent a good part of the last year fending off allegations that he pocketed some of the money intended for families of the victims. Some have accused him of not delivering all of the individual $5,900 checks collected for the families through the Migrant Relief Fund that was set up in Caribou.

“That money was delivered to the families,” Hernandez-Caballero said. “The checks from the funds were received by the families by January 17.”

He also explained that Rubbermaid containers carrying personal belongings – except valuables such as wedding rings and cash – were sent back to Honduras with the victims’ bodies. He said he didn’t include the money or other sentimental possessions immediately because he was concerned that predators who were aware of the accident would try to steal from the containers.

As a precaution, money and jewelry were shipped separately to a Honduran foreign ministry office at a later date, he said. The families were contacted and most of the property has been picked up. Two family members of one victim, however, are still fighting over who has the rights to the victim’s belongings, he said.

Expecting that he might be accused of mishandling the cash and belongings, Hernandez-Caballero said that just days after the accident he and the Honduran ambassador, Mario M. Canahuati, set up a system for delivering the personal property and money.

The Maine State Police gave Hernandez-Caballero an inventory of the items police matched with each victim, Hernandez-Caballero said. He then notified the families about what was found and confirmed that the items did indeed belong to their loved one.

In Honduras, each family signed a letter authorizing Hernandez-Caballero to send the belongings to them, and releasing him of any claims if the property were stolen along the way, he said. The amount of money that belonged to each of the victims was kept confidential to protect the families in Honduras, he said.

People who knew of the accident did call inquiring about how much money particular families received, Hernandez-Caballero said, but the embassy would not tell them.

“We never say ‘yes,’ we never say ‘no’ to those [questions] for their [the families’] safety,” he said.

The checks from the Migrant Relief Fund were sent to the foreign ministry office. When the families picked up the money, they were required to sign a form and have their picture taken with the check, Hernandez-Caballero said.

Ministry officials sent him receipts whenever they received anything he mailed to them special delivery for the families. Those receipts also are kept in his binder, he said.

As far as he knows, Hernandez-Caballero said, the families got everything they were supposed to from his office.

His thick, heavy binder also contains mementos of tender moments that Hernandez-Caballero shared with members of the victims’ families, such as letters, thank-you notes and photographs. The binder, too, serves as a reminder of the pain the families endured by the deaths of their loved ones.

A few days after the accident, several U.S.-based family members of two victims traveled to Maine to view their relatives’ bodies and to conduct private funeral services at Kincer Funeral Home in Richmond before the caskets were shipped to Honduras.

Hernandez-Caballero stood in the back of the funeral parlor and watched as one by one the relatives said their tearful goodbyes.

“These moments are going to be with me for a very long time,” he said.