Posted Sep 12, 2014, 12:19 pm

Paul Ingram TucsonSentinel.com

Agents with the Border Patrol's rescue unit saved a Mexican national in the desert near Sonoita on Wednesday.

Around 4 p.m., agents with the Border Patrol's Search Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR) unit received an emergency phone call from a Mexican man lost in the desert in Sonoita, according to a release from the agency. The man is suspected of being in the country illegally.

After receiving the 911 call, a helicopter crew with the Office of Air and Marine's Tucson Air Branch helped search for the man.

A short time later, agents from the Sonoita station located man and a medic with BORSTAR treated him for dehydration and exhaustion.

The man was taken aboard a helicopter and flown to a local hospital.

The man was the 460 person to be rescued by Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector since the beginning of the fiscal year.

Border Patrol has been pushing to decrease the number of deaths in the Arizona desert through the Blue Light of Life campaign, which includes a media campaign to describe the dangers of crossing the Arizona border

"We remain committed to reducing the number of deaths of illegal aliens in the Sonoran Desert," said Peter Bidegain, an agency spokesman.

This year, the agency has discovered 100 bodies in the desert, the number of deaths are down approximately 45 percent compared to the same time last year when the agency found 183 bodies in the desert, said Bidegain.

Nationwide, the agency recorded 284 immigrant deaths near the southwest border between October and August of this year, down from 420 over the same period the year before.

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/...-near-sonoita/