Los Angeles Times

Commentary: As a San Diego neurosurgeon, I see the devastating toll of the raised border wall

A section of border wall that was being built in 2020 in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.

At 2 in the morning and while I was caring for my hospitalized patients, my pager went off. The message was short: “30-year-old male. Unstable spinal fracture after border fall.” I think of all the similar pages I have received in my three years as a resident physician in neurosurgery in San Diego: young individuals with life-changing severe injuries that they sustained falling from the wall that separates the United States from Mexico. The Trump administration raised sections of this wall to 30 feet high rather than 8 to 10 feet, after which more falls caused

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