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Texas Hospital Sees “Devastating” Border Casualties

Two men scale the border fence into Mexico near Douglas, Arizona, in 2009

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Construction of the U.S./Mexico border wall has been subject to discussion for many years as a way to address unlawful immigration.

Newsweek reports that, while construction continues on the U.S./Mexico border in Texas border. Physicians across Texas and California have warned that injuries suffered by migrants scaling 30-foot walls have become serious and more common.

“The injuries from an orthopedic standpoint are what we would describe as devastating for the most part,” Rajiv Rajani, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) in El Paso, told Newsweek.

“And it’s a very unique social political phenomenon related to the border wall. We don’t see this type of injury pattern in this regularity with any other phenomenon—typically high-energy car wrecks or falls from heights. People will get these injuries all over the country, but you don’t get this cluster in volume of them.”

At their busiest time, the physicians at TTUHSC see up to 10 migrant injuries per week.

KJ

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