(ReliableNews.org) – The US-Mexico border crossing in San Diego, California, is known for being dangerous. Migrants injure themselves all the time trying to jump over the 30-foot wall. Others die in the Pacific Ocean, trying to go around the fencing. Dozens of people suffered injuries in the first week of March.
According to reports, 26 migrants were injured in the week before Sunday, March 10. Eight immigrants received treatment on Saturday, and eight more on Sunday. Another 10 suffered injuries in the days leading up to the weekend.
This isn’t the first time injuries have been reported on the San Diego border with Mexico. Last November, UC San Diego Health hospitals revealed it was on pace to treat more than 360 people who fell and suffered injuries on the border in 2023. It was the fourth straight record-breaking year for injuries.
Doctors credited the uptick in injuries to the extension of the border wall under former President Donald Trump. It used to be 17 feet, but now it’s 30 feet. Dr. Jay Doucet, the head of the trauma department at UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest, told KPBS that less than 12 people fell from the wall in 2018 and received serious injuries. Now, doctors are seeing at least two critically injured patients per day.
On March 2, first responders from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department took 10 people in a single day to the hospital with moderate or mild injuries. Neurosurgeon Joseph Ciacci told The Associated Press that he’s seen a fivefold increase in trauma cases from people falling from the border wall since 2019. The Mexican consulate has stated that 29 migrants died from falls in 2023.
Falls from their height can break bones, fracture skulls, cause severe spinal damage, shut off brain function, and puncture internal organs. The injuries are compared to those that a person would receive if they were in a high-impact car accident. Dr. Doucet and his colleagues have called the falls a public health crisis.
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