During his administration, former President Donald Trump raised the height of the border wall to discourage people from trying to climb over, and now that's having an unforeseen effect. Good evening and thanks for joining us tonight. I'm Steve Price and I'm Kirsten Holmes. The border walls were raised to a height of 30 feet. In some areas you can see them behind me and that's led to a huge spike in severe injuries from falls. CBS's Tim Blodgett has the story for you. The latest iteration of the US Mexico border Wall was designed to be higher and to prevent people from scaling it. That illegal border crossers are still finding a way over and falling from a much higher height, and this was the one that was hardest to climb and we've all seen the pictures of young people climbing this wall can't be climbed when then President Donald Trump vowed to secure the southern border with hundreds of miles of new wall. There was several prototypes to choose from. Eventually, this design was picked 18 or 30 foot high sections made of concrete. Rebar, steel ballards, but the wall that former President Trump said would be unclimbable still seems to have flaws. Social media footage shows young men with makeshift ladders climbing to the top of the wall, then sliding down the bollards on the other side. But not every brazen border crossword gets away so cleanly, and it can sometimes end with tragedy just from the last month alone. At the 27 year old who died now, incidentally, that patient was kovid positive, but didn't die from COVID. It was the head injury. Doctor Ghazala Sharif is the. Chief medical officer of acute care at Scripps Health. She says she's seen an alarming amount of new cases from falling injuries at the border wall at 2019. We had, you know, maybe 5 Border falls a month. It was really just a lower number. It's like 2020. We had 41 border injuries 41 this last year alone. At 2021 we went up to 139, a study released by UC San Diego Health on Friday broke down the exact numbers showing 67 trauma related incidents. In 2016 to 2017, that number climbed to 375. Between 2019 and 2021 and these are not just one broken bone. These are multiple fractures, head injuries, spinal cord injuries, so there's an immense toll that it takes on our surgeons and the patients. People crossing the border illegally are desperate enough to risk life and limb to get into the United States. Consequences from the accidents not only affect the migrant, but put excess strain on the United States healthcare system. And so then we keep bumping people. You know, down down the chain and these other patients get sicker as they're waiting. We have to think about all the repercussions, not just alone of the the border patients that are getting injured, but how it affects other patients as well. Tim Blodgett, CBS 8.
