A Mexican woman called an emergency number from the Otay Mountains on the California border to report that she had been injured and lost in an unknown area.
Although he called to California, the terrain made his call easier to receive in Mexico, where the border patrol was notified.
Officer Eric Laverne told La Opinion that the search and rescue team found the woman at sunset on Tuesday, but the pain left the migrant unable to walk, and cross-country agents were also unable to get her out on a stretcher.
The officers and the migrant had to wait the next morning when the patrol requested help from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Helicopter.
By the time the plane took the woman out of the area, the patrol had already received another call for help from the Mexican authorities. The call was again received east of Tijuana, but not in California.
It was a man, also of Mexican descent, who was found faster than the woman, but also unable to walk due to severe chest pain. To rescue him, the patrol coordinated with a California Department of Forestry (CalFire) helicopter.
The authorities transferred both migrants to hospitals, where they were treated. Officer Laverne said the two were abandoned by human traffickers known to be coyotes, who abandoned them to their fate when it became impossible for them to continue.
Apparently both fell off the top of the border wall and walked for a while, until pain prevented them from continuing.
Both cases are just a sample of “more than 5,000 rescues the San Diego Border Patrol has completed in the past 10 months since the current fiscal year began on October 1,” the official said.
According to the data provided by the officer, there are an average of 16 rescue operations per day in the San Diego sector alone.
San Diego Patrol Search and Rescue Commander Orlando Romero said his unit is increasing resources to cope with the growing number of rescues it has to carry out.
For example, he said, the San Diego Border Patrol now has a foreign operations unit that constantly coordinates with authorities on the Mexican side of the border, mainly in the municipalities of Tijuana and Tecate, but also with other regions of Mexico. with other countries as needed.
This office acts as a liaison and receives 911 calls that originate from the mountains on the border with California and are received in Mexico.
Commander Romero told La Opinion that among the new resources to help migrants who ask for rescue are twelve mobile phone towers for emergency communications.
The patrol in San Diego had just four fixed towers that function like highway emergency phones, but instead of a headset, migrants press a button that sends a signal similar to 911 and location.
Commander Romero said “the advantage of having more teams now and being mobile is that we can get them where they can best serve us” and that’s where the flow of people crossing the border is changing.
He explained that his unit does most of the rescue work along the wall, in falls, and in inhospitable areas such as deserts and mountains. According to him, the devices will be used in both scenarios – along the wall and in the wilderness.
Patrol in San Diego is increasingly relying on Mexican authorities to carry out rescue efforts.
Commander Romero explained that since much of the undocumented activity is linked to organized crime, “we run mirror tours where we cross the same section of the border on both sides” of the wall at the same time.
The Mexican consul in San Diego, Carlos González Gutiérrez, for his part, said that “eight out of 10 Mexican migrants rescued by the border patrol are people who fell from the top of the wall” from a height of 30 feet or about 10 meters.
The consul said the traffickers offer migrants to help them climb the wall, “but they don’t tell them they won’t be able to come down,” so many fall and “get fractures, sometimes very serious.”
The diplomat said that “it’s not worth putting life on display like that”, it’s dangerous to jump over the wall, go to inhospitable areas where it’s not always possible to save people.
Source: La Opinion
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