A man died after attempting to climb the border fence at the U.S.-Mexico border in Otay Mesa Friday morning and several other people were injured, authorities said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, San Diego Fire-Rescue and San Diego police responded to the scene just west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry south of San Diego around 5 a.m.
A man in his 30s fell from the border fence and died at the scene, San Diego police said.
Five others were injured and transported to nearby hospitals, San Diego Fire-Rescue said. It was unclear if they were injured in a fall or in some other manner.
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No other details were immediately available. NBC 7 has reached out to CBP for more information.
A UC San Diego Health study released last week showed a five-time increase in the number of high-severity injuries occurring at the U.S.- Mexico border wall in Southern San Diego since 2019, when a 30-foot secondary fencing was installed.
The study published in the JAMA Surgery journal said UC San Diego Health treated 375 trauma-related incidents due to falls between 2019 and 2021 compared with 67 cases from 2016 to 2019.
The study attributed the increase in injuries and deaths to a higher border wall.
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"The height increase of the border wall along the San Ysidro and El Centro sectors was touted as making the barrier 'unclimbable,' but that has not stopped people from attempting to do so with consequential results," said first author Dr. Amy Liepert, medical director of acute care surgery at UCSD Health. "This is an unseen public health crisis happening right now and it has significantly affected major local health care providers in San Diego."
This is a developing story. Details may change as information becomes available.
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