http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/metro/76379.php

Desert Heat Claims 5 Lives
Weekend dead believed to be illegal entrants
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Sickening waves of heat killed five people this weekend, likely all illegal entrants, their bodies scattered from Yuma County to east of Tucson. The deaths forebode a third straight year of more than 200 entrant deaths in Arizona.

With the deaths, the bodies of at least 70 illegal entrants have been found in Arizona this year, an Arizona Daily Star compilation of county medical examiner reports shows. That matches the situation at this point last fiscal year, when 221 people died trying to cross through the Arizona desert, the same records show.

More immediately, illegal entrants are facing near-record temperatures through Tuesday; Sunday topped out at 109 degrees in Tucson, and today will be much the same at a projected 107 degrees, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Meyer.

Those scorching temperatures have U.S. Border Patrol officials worried.

"With this heat coming in, it doesn't look good, but we'll do the best we can," said Joe Brigman, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma Sector, where 14 deaths have been recorded since the beginning of the federal fiscal year Oct. 1.

Tucson Sector officials expected a weekend like this, spokesman Jose Garza said. The sector counts 48 dead this year.

The Border Patrol and local law enforcement agencies only recovered five bodies this weekend. Nobody knows how many have actually died.

Take the case of a search late Sunday night:

A hot, dry wind whistled through the mesquite and cactus southwest of Tucson, the quiet disturbed by the crackle of agent radios as the Border Patrol's search and rescue team - BORSTAR - finished a search off Valhalla Road.

A cell phone call to 911 from a frightened illegal entrant early Sunday ended with 23 people rescued. Some were vomiting, lying on the ground or huddled in the shade of cacti when the team arrived.

Four were taken to Tucson hospitals for severe dehydration and one remained lost in the desert, said BORSTAR Commander Ron Bellavia.

The team scoured the desert around Valhalla Road but did not find that person, he said.

One team, its shift finished, gathered its gear, loading all-terrain vehicles onto trailers and heading home.

"It's going to start all over again tomorrow," Bellavia said.

The group of illegal border crossers had walked for three days before giving up and calling for help, using a Mexican cell phone one crosser carried.

If it weren't for the giant rusted power lines that lined the road, the migrants may never have been found, Bellavia said.

"It's all about the power lines," he said. "And experience and training. And luck."

Sometimes that luck appears in the form of cell phones and easily identifiable landmarks. Sometimes it comes in the form of off-duty police officers noticing bodies on the side of the road.

That's what happened at 4 a.m. Sunday, when an off-duty Tucson Police Department officer spotted a body on Vail Road near Interstate 10, said police Sgt. Carlos Valdez, an agency spokesman.

The body has not yet been verified as that of a border crosser, but there were no signs of foul play, he said.

Twice Saturday evening, the Pima County Sheriff's Department received calls about bodies off the road. The first was around 5:30 p.m., 25 miles north of Sasabe, off Arizona 286; an hour later a body was reported at Empirita Road and Interstate 10, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a Sheriff's spokeswoman.

Both were Mexican nationals who likely died from heat exposure; the first body was that of a woman, she said.

Border Patrol agents in Yuma were alerted to two more deaths by the victims' husbands, who went searching for help, The Associated Press reported.

The Yuma County Sheriff's Office told AP the women were Viridiana Herrera Aguilar, 18, and Marcela Cruz Gonzalez, 24.

One was found on the Barry M. Goldwater Range Saturday afternoon, Brigman said. The second was found east of the San Luis Port of Entry early Sunday. She'd only made it 3 miles into the United States, he said.

The reports of still more illegal entrants dying, terrified and vomiting continued late Sunday, Garza said.

No sooner did the BORSTAR team begin the search for the missing man south of Tucson than a call came in about 10 more people missing in the west desert, he said. BORSTAR agents were still searching Sunday night.

â—? Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or at mmarizco@azstarnet.com.