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Six rows of coiled concertina wire cover the border fence at the end of North Short Street in Nogales on Thursday, Feb. 7.
Six rows of coiled concertina wire cover the border fence at the end of North Short Street in Nogales on Thursday, Feb. 7.
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Nearly seven months after the Army arrived to install concertina wire on the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Nogales, local paramedics responded to their first report of a fence-climber who was injured by the wire’s razor-sharp barbs.
On May 24, the Nogales Fire Department was notified by police dispatch of an 18-year-old man with cuts on his fingers, according to Gerry Castro, EMS division chief. The man told officers that he had grabbed onto the wire as he came down from the border fence, injuring both hands in the process.
Firefighters responded to 131 East Street, on a hillside east of the DeConcini Port of Entry, and transported the man to Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales.
The barbed concertina wire, which was first installed in two rows near the top of the fence in Nogales early November 2018, quickly drew criticism from local residents and officials.
When the Army returned in February to install several additional rows of wire that in some areas stretched to the ground, Mayor Arturo Garino led an effort to pass a resolution that called on the federal government to remove the concertina wire, saying that it can cause “indiscriminate injury which can be fatal.”
In February, NFD spokeswoman Marcela Hammond told the NI that her department’s medical teams had not responded to any injuries related to fence-climbing since the wire was installed.
But that changed in recent weeks.
In addition to the May 24 incident, NFD received a call on June 5 regarding a 30-year-old woman who had fallen 20 feet from the border fence near the Mariposa Port of Entry. According to fire department records, the woman stated she had pain in her left ankle, which officers evaluated as a possible fracture, as well as chest and back pain.
NFD personnel transported the woman to Holy Cross Hospital.
The fence near the Mariposa port has been outfitted with concertina wire, but Castro said the woman did not suffer any wire-related injuries.
Castro said fire department personnel has been directed to notify him about any concertina wire-related injuries and he was not aware of any incidents other than the May 24 case in which fence-climbers had been hurt by the wire.
It’s possible that other people have been hurt by the wire but did not report it to authorities.
The U.S. Border Patrol has called the wire “absolutely beneficial” to its law enforcement efforts in Nogales.
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