US hospital treated 441 patients with severe injuries from border wall last year

Doctors at the University of California, San Diego’s trauma center (UCSD) have treated 455 patients with serious injuries sustained while trying to cross the US-Mexico border in 2023, a marked increase from the year before.

Ninety-seven per cent of the injuries, or 441 of them, occurred when people fell off the wall on the US side, said Alexander Tenorio, a resident neurosurgeon at UCSD who treats brain and spinal cord injuries.

The number captures just a part of people injured while trying to cross the US-Mexico border near San Diego. The center is one of two major trauma centers in the region. Migrants with injuries perceived as less severe may not make it to a hospital. And children aren’t included in the dataset.

Still, they highlight the extensive, and growing human toll of the border crossing. Last year, the trauma center recorded 311 injuries related to people scaling the wall. In 2021 it recorded 254, in 2000 there were 92 and in 2019 there were 42.

“A lot of these [patients] come with fractures all over their body, unfortunately, and that’s what you would expect if someone falls 30ft. It’s like a three-story building,” Tenorio said.

Tenorio said the patients arrive at the trauma center with broken limbs, abdominal organ injuries, facial injuries, and spine fractures. “A lot of these injuries unfortunately don’t heal on their own because they’re so severe and extensive,” Tenorio said, adding that a significant number of patients end up undergoing emergency craniotomies or spinal cord surgery. Of the patients who underwent these spinal cord surgeries, Tenorio said, only 14% came back for a clinic visit, making long-term outcomes difficult to assess.

In 2023, Tenorio said, the center for the first time saw more women