There was a dramatic increase in falls reported at the U.S.-Mexico border wall over the weekend.
According to Falck, the 911 ambulance provider in San Diego, emergency crews responded to at least 10 falls on Saturday alone.
“It keeps us extremely busy down there,” said John Goward, Managing Director, Falck San Diego.
Goward says they’ve responded to an increasing number of border falls in recent months.
“On foggy days there are more falls, and also on nights when there is low moonlight,” he said.
This weekend, Falck received 30 calls to the border and took 10 people who had fallen off the border wall to nearby hospitals. Goward says those with traumatic injuries were taken to UCSD or Mercy Hospital.
UC San Diego Health says they treated 70 border crossing injuries in October alone, setting a new record.
“It’s not surprising,” said Pedro Rios, an immigrant rights advocate and director, American Friends Service Committee. “We see people cross here regularly who have actually scaled the border wall.”
ABC 10News spoke with Rios back in Septemberwhen a woman in her 40s died after falling from the wall.
“There really aren’t that many opportunities for people to present themselves at the port to make an asylum claim," Rios said. "And so people are forced to cross into the U.S. through extremely dangerous methods. One is attempting to scale the border wall.”
In some parts, the wall is 30 feet high. According to Rios, smugglers don’t always disclose that detail.
“They don’t know that that’s part of what they are agreeing to when they pay the smugglers,” he said.
