Agents rescue 2, lose third, find body in desert
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.07.2008
advertisementU.S. Border Patrol agents on Monday rescued two illegal immigrant men who were extremely dehydrated on the Tohono O'odham Reservation with help from a signal fire and a cell phone.
Agents were unable to revive another man who stopped breathing and died near Arivaca. And in a third incident, they found human skeletal remains on the Tohono O'odham Reservation.
The unsuccessful rescue attempt began at 3:20 p.m. when a man approached a Border Patrol agent working near the town of Arivaca and told him that his brother was unconscious, said Mike Scioli, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokes-man. The agent followed the man and found his brother with a faint pulse and shallow breathing, Scioli said.
The agent called for a life flight helicopter and began giving CPR to the 22-year-old man from Sinaloa, Mexico. He was able to keep him breathing by continuing to give CPR, Scioli said. At 4:12 p.m., the helicopter arrived and crew members took over giving CPR.
At 4:45 p.m., they pronounced the man dead.
His brother and another man, his cousin, who were with him told agents that they had been left behind by the group they were traveling with. Agents took those two to a Border Patrol station where they were going to speak with officials with the Mexican Consulate.
The successful rescue began later Monday at about 10 p.m. when the Pinal County Sheriff's Department received a 911 cell phone call from someone in a group who said they were in distress somewhere on the Tohono O'odham Reservation and needed help, Scioli said.
Sheriff's deputies were able to patch the call straight to the cell phone of a Borstar agent, the Border Patrol's search, trauma and rescue team, who was working in the area, Scioli said.
The person on the phone couldn't identify where they were but told the agent he was going to set up a signal fire to help agents locate them.
More agents were sent to look for the group along with a National Guard helicopter. At about 2 a.m., the helicopter spotted the group of 15 illegal immigrants southwest of the village of Little Tucson, just east of Sells. They found them by continuing to talk to the caller on the cell phone and from the fire, Scioli said.
All of the people in the group were dehydrated but two of them were in particularly bad shape, Scioli said. An agent who responded began treating the two Mexican men, 43 and 46, Scioli said. The agent called the Sells paramedics when he realized that the 43-year-old man was diabetic.
At about 4 a.m., Sells paramedics arrived and took the two men to Sells Hospital, where they were treated and recovered, Scioli said.
The discovery of the skeletal remains occurred Monday at 3 p.m. about four miles west of the village of Vamori on the O'odham Reservation, Scioli said. An agent found the remains partially covered by rocks and a blanket, he said. The body was too decomposed to determine if it was a man or a woman but Tohono O'odham police found a bra and women's underwear in a backpack near the remains, Scioli said.
The remains will be turned over to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, which has handled the bodies of 40 likely illegal border crossers from Jan. 1-May 6, said Dr. Bruce Parks, chief medical examiner. There were 52 through the same period last year, he said.
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