Five Migrants near Death Rescued from California Desert

San Diego and El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents, CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) aircrews teamed up to rescue five migrants facing death from heat and dehydration in the California Desert. The rescues occurred during two separate incidents in late August.

El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents requested assistance on August 27 from an AMO aircrew to help locate a group of migrants who were reported to be in distress in the Jacumba Wilderness Area. CBP dispatched a UH-60 Black Hawk aircrew based out of Naval Air Station North Island, California.

The aircrew quickly located the missing migrants after one of the migrants started a small, but potentially very dangerous signal fire. The crew landed and an AMO emergency medical technician assessed each of the four migrants. The EMT found one of the migrants to be unresponsive and suffering an advanced stage of heat stroke — a potentially deadly condition. Officials said the other migrants also had succumbed to the heat and were dehydrated. The aircrew members provided water to the distressed migrants.

Other members of the crew immediately took on the small fire and extinguished it before it could spread in the dry brush.

The aircrew coordinated with El Centro Sector Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) agents to bring them to the scene. The BORSTAR team transported the three stable migrants to the station for processing while the aircrew flew the still unresponsive migrant to a medical center in Brawley, California for emergency treatment.

Officials reported that all four migrants were Mexican men between the ages of 20 and 38.

A second AMO aircrew received a call for assistance on the morning of August 28 from a San Diego Sheriff’s Department helicopter crew. The sheriff’s helicopter crew needed assistance in locating a distressed migrant. Adverse weather conditions and the rugged terrain hampered the search efforts.

About 45 minutes later, the AMO aircrew located the migrant on a steep ridge line in an isolated area of Otay Mountain. A cell phone patch between the migrant and the illegal immigrant aided the search effort.

Due to the precarious location, the pilot made a one-wheel landing allowing a BORSTAR agent to deploy and assess the migrant’s condition. The agent determined that the 41-year-old Mexican man was dehydrated and suffered multiple injuries from a fall in the mountainous terrain.

The BORSTAR agent reported that man claimed to have been in the desert for five days 00 three of which were without water. An onboard EMT provided IV fluids and the aircrew transported the migrant to Brown Field where San Diego Sector Border Patrol agents took custody of the distressed migrant. The agents transported the Mexican national to a local hospital for emergency evaluation and treatment.

“It is inherently dangerous to illegally cross the border,” said Hunter Davis, Director of Air & Marine Operations in San Diego.  “Those dangers are heightened exponential in mountainous and remote areas especially during inclement weather.”