Trump's 'unclimbable wall' claim fact-checked as hospitals fill up with migrants who tried
Border county hospitals have reported a surge in migrants needing medical treatment after dropping off the border wall on the US side.
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Donald Trump insisted the border wall he campaigned to have built in 2016 was "impenetrable" and would play a pivotal role in slashing illegal migration into the US.
But public health data is now seemingly disproving the former president's expectations, as hospitals across border states have been filling up with migrants who climbed the 30-feet wall in a desperate effort to make it into the US.
When construction of a 30-feet section of the wall started in California in 2019, then-president Trump insisted: "This wall can't be climbed."
However, data has shown county hospitals in San Diego and El Paso have been admitting patients with border wall fall-related trauma at a rate of one per day over the past year.
Among the most common injuries are broken legs and feet, shattered ankles and other minor breaks. But the unlucky ones face the prospect of life-changing spinal or cranial injuries.
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Alma Zavala made it over the fence and was urged to, "let go, let go," by the smugglers who guided her to the border.
Laying in a bed at a El Paso shelter with a broken leg, she told Today: "I hugged the wall.
"My hands were bleeding from the rough edges. The guide was screaming, 'Let go! Let go!' I dropped down and felt my bones break."
The young Mexican mother has already undergone eight surgeries in the past month after dropping the nearly three-stories tall wall.
She and other women at the shelter sustained similar injuries after climbing the wall using makeshift rope ladders of plastic pipes and braided board.
Zavala said she didn't know she'd be forced to climb the fence or that there wouldn't be any other way to get down than to jump off. She also noted there was no turning back once the smugglers got her to the border.
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Physicians like Dr. Susan McLean warned wall falls come with a "mortality rate that is higher than Covid in the general population."
The El Paso University Medical Center surgical ICU medical director added: "And it is something that is happening all up and down the border."
Dr. McLean noted the Medical Center recorded one border wall fall-related death between 2000 and 2019 but last year nine patients died after falling off. Another 328 people had to be treated for varying degrees of injuries.
The University of California, San Diego Health Medical Center recorded similar numbers over the past 10 months, with 345 patients treated for wall-related trauma.
Dr. Jay Doucet also told the broadcaster: "October was the worst month we have seen: 70 major trauma victims. It’s more than two a day."
The report comes at a time of heightened concern over the growing number of migrants making their way to Mexico to attempt to cross the border into the US.
The Biden administration and border states, including Texas, have been investing in new wall infrastructure near the Rio Grande River in South Texas.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the decision – a U-turn on Joe Biden's 2020 campaign pledge not to add to the wall – citing "high illegal entry" into the US.
Mayorkas said: "There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States to prevent unlawful entries into the United States."
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