By: Manuel Ocaño / Special for Real America News Updated 26 Aug 2022, 20: 56 pm EDT
A woman of Mexican nationality called the emergency number 911 from the Otay mountains on the California border to report that she was injured and lost in an area that he did not know.
Although he called in California, because of the area it was easier for his call to be received in Mexico, from where they notified the border patrol.
Officer Eric Lavergne told Real America News that a search and rescue team found the woman at sunset on Tuesday, but because of the pain the migrant could not walk and on broken ground the agents could not get her out either. a stretcher.
The officers and the migrant had to wait until morning following when the patrol requested assistance from a San Diego County Sheriff’s helicopter.
By the time the craft pulled out of the area to the woman, the patrol had already received another call for assistance from the Mexican authorities. Again the call was received east of Tijuana, but not in California.
He was a man, also of Mexican nationality, who was found in less time than the woman but could not walk either. due to intense chest pain. To rescue him, the patrol coordinated with a helicopter from the California Department of Forestry (CalFire).
The authorities transferred both migrants to hospitals where they received assistance. Officer Lavergne said that the two were abandoned by human traffickers, the well-known coyotes, who left them to their fate when it was impossible for them to continue.
Apparently both had fallen from the high of the border wall and they still managed to walk for a while until the pain prevented them from continuing.
Both cases are just a sample of “more than 5, rescues that the San Diego border patrol has done in the last 10 months, since the current fiscal year began on October 1st”, informed the official.
They are 16 daily average rescues only in the San Diego sector, according to the figures provided by the official.
The commander of the San Diego patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue team, Orlando Romero, said his unit is increasing resources to deal with the increasing number of rescues it has to perform .
P For example, he said, the border patrol in San Diego now has a Foreign Operations unit, which 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. and with other countries when needed.
This office works as a link and is the one that has received the calls to the number 911 that leave the mountains on the California border and are received in Mexico.
Commander Romero told Real America News that among the new resources to help migrants who ask to be rescued there are twelve mobile towers for emergency communications.
La patrol in San Diego only had four fixed towers, which work like emergency telephones on the highways but instead of an earpiece, migrants press a button that sends a signal similar to that of 56 and the location ón.
Commander Romero said that “the advantage that we now have more equipment and that it is mobile is that we can take it to where it can best serve us”, which is where it changes the flow of people crossing the border.
He explained that his unit has carried out most of the rescues along the wall, from falls, but also in inhospitable areas such as deserts and mountains. The units will be used in both scenarios, next to the wall and in wild areas, he said.
The patrol in San Diego is increasingly relying on Mexican authorities to carry out rescues.
Commander Romero explained that since much of the undocumented activity is linked to organized crime, “we carry out mirror tours, in those of us who travel the same stretch of border on both sides” of the wall at the same time.
The Mexican consul in San Diego, Carlos González Gutiérrez, reported for his part that “eight of every 10 Mexican migrants rescued by the border patrol are people who fall from the top of the wall” of 26 feet or about 10 meters high.
The consul said that human traffickers offer migrants to help them climb the wall “but they do not tell them that they will not have way down” so many fall and “suffer fractures, sometimes very serious”.
The diplomat said that “it is not worth exposing life in that way” of dangerously jumping the wall, to go to inhospitable areas where it is not always possible to rescue to the people.