Uptick in heat-related migrant rescues strains Sunland Park Fire Department

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. ( KTSM ) — The Sunland Park Fire Department (SPFD) finds itself extremely busy as temperatures rise to dangerous levels prompting heat exposure calls out in the desert from migrants crossing the border.

The SPFD has recorded 13 deaths in the desert since March, due to the scorching temperatures.

“Once they cross that border wall, it’s a desert, it’s literally desolate,” Fire Chief Daniel Medrano said. “Even though we are very close to the border and civilization, housing, businesses or whatever, it’s very easy to get lost. And that’s what we’re finding.”

Medrano said most heat-exposure calls come in during the hottest portions of the day, specifically between 4 and 7 p.m.

When crews respond and make contact with a patient, their primary goal is to cool down the patient’s body temperature before even taking them to a hospital.

SPFD often works with U.S. Border Patrol agents to conduct these rescues.

People suffering from heat exposure will often fall into one of three categories:

• Fire cramps
• Fire exhaustion
• Fire stroke

Rescue crews first use a frozen blanket to try and cool down the patient, but if their temperature is at 104 degrees or more, they have to perform an ice bath to save the patient’s life.

These rescues become very common during the summer for SPFD, and they face unique challenges as a fire department.

“Just a week and a half ago, we had four of these within like four to six minutes,” said SPFD Battalion Chief Ramiro Rios. “So, for example, we’d be here with this patient, and two minutes later we had another patient, and then two minutes later another patient, and that’s when we flew one of them out.”

The SPFD has a mutual aid agreement with other fire departments across the Borderland in case they have to respond to multiple heat rescues that strain their resources.

“It’s resource intensive. If we’re looking for a potential alive person in the desert that was reported as a search and rescue, I’m using my whole shift, my entire department to do that,” Medrano said.

The department currently has 25 people on staff.

“That can be very taxing on the guys because they did three ice baths that day on three patients. They flew one out and then they ground-transported two patients to the hospital. But three out of the five had life-threatening injuries. So it gets to the point where there is a lot of stress on our crews trying to mitigate every single incident that we have going on,” Rios said.

The SPFD doesn’t have specialized units like other fire departments across the Borderland to respond to situations like these and, therefore, depends on the firefighters they have on staff.

If a call comes in after the sun has set, Rios said it’s most likely a body rather than a person in need of rescue.

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