The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [72]
Pima County, home of Tucson sector, wrote off $24.7 million in 2000 alone. San Diego and El Paso were, incredibly, worse. In Tucson itself, University Medical Center lost an estimated $6.5 million for treatment of “undocumented entrants.” And little old Yuma, population 160,000, spent $4.1 million. About a quarter of these bills were from illegals, though the media laid it all on them.
A survey conducted by Florida’s MGT of America, a consulting firm, estimated that illegals made up 23 percent of unpaid bills in the Southwest’s ER’s and care centers. Twenty-three percent might seem like a moderate percentage of the cost—after all, that means that 77 percent of the bills are unpaid by good Americans. Still, elder care, certain emergency services, and long-term care for American citizens were forced to shut down all over Arizona as the toll mounted.
The walkers lay in beds, unaware that they were costing anything.
The border makes number crunchers go mad. It’s harder to cross, so there are more Coyotes; the numbers of crossers, in spite of $5.5 billion spent to stop them, keep swelling; deaths increase; wildlife is endangered; landscape is ruined; and supply and demand rule—Coyotes charge more every year, and because of this, fewer Mexicans are willing to return to Mexico. Why risk it? Now that the average cost of crossing is somewhere around seven hundred dollars, only 38 percent of illegals choose to go back after two years in the United States. They simply can’t afford to go home.
The lost walkers lay on crisp white sheets, rolled through swinging doors, blinked at confusing lights and masked faces, hospital gowns, the smell of disinfectant and their own strange musky stench. Needles. Liquids. A sign flashed by: THIS WAY HEART CENTER. People in green inserted electric thermometers in their ears. Hands in rubber gloves. “Are we contagious?” one of them asked, but no one answered.
On that last morning of the long walk, Wednesday, May 23, when agent Mike F. found the men on the Vidrios Drag, it was ten in the morning. The men began to arrive in the Yuma Medical Center within hours. They were met by Dr. David Haynes and his team. It was overwhelming: body after body, patient after patient. Dr. Haynes jumped to it. All of them had kidney damage from the relentless cooking. The Border Patrol and other rescuers were truly racing the clock: Haynes told the local newspaper, “They would all be dead if they hadn’t been brought in to the hospital when they were.” Later, Haynes told reporters, “Have you ever seen a mummy from ancient Egypt? That gives you an idea. They looked shriveled up.”
Nine of them were in fair condition. Two were in serious condition. One was critical. When Mendez arrived, he scrunched low in his bed and tried not to make eye contact. Would the boys cover for him? Would they let him escape?
The walkers went into rooms, sometimes together, and sometimes paired with strangers. Hilario, who had lost his water the first night, not only survived but managed to somehow look dapper in his bed. His hair was neatly combed, and his thin moustache looked like it was drawn on his lip.
Rafael Temich ended up in a room with an old white man. His nurse was named Jenny, and Jenny came and went, wrestling mightily with the old man.
“Did they come and exercise you?”
“What?”
Rafael didn’t understand a word of it.
“Who turned down your bed today?”
“Huh? What?”
Rafael kept finding dry little things in his nose and mouth, kept picking them out while Jenny struggled with his neighbor.
“You pulled out your needle!”
“I did?” the old man replied.
“He pulled out his IV.”
“What?”
The old man launched loud, hacking coughs into the room.
“Our friend,” Rafael said, “is in bad shape.”
The hospital’s social worker spoke Spanish. He stepped into the room, interrupting the sheriff’s interrogation. Rafael’s mother called from Veracruz, trying to see if he was alive. The hospital was going to provide him with a call back to her