Stanton: ‘There are things worse than death’
by Billie Stanton on Oct. 09, 2007, under OpinionSamaritans’ group sees the worst – and the best – along the border
These migrants were changing trains at Benjamin Hill, a little town south of Magdalena, Son., where many people ride atop freight trains toward the U.S.
The dying man couldn’t even lift his head, but at least he had collapsed alongside a road, where the Americans spotted him.
It was morning, already 100 degrees, and he couldn’t drink, couldn’t be cooled down.
They loaded him into a car and drove him to the hospital.
“Then those wonderful angels at St. Mary’s saved him,” Kathryn Ferguson recalls.
“He wanted us to notify his family that he was dying. We couldn’t hear his phone number; he was almost unconscious. That was the worst thing: We couldn’t hear his number.”
But the most harrowing memory was yet to come for Ferguson, a volunteer with Samaritans for the past four years.
“When he started to revive, he started crying and said, ‘There are things worse than death,’ ” she recalls.
“He had seen a hand sticking out of the ground, and he had seen a corpse. He just started sobbing and said, ‘There are things worse than death.’ ”
Ferguson, like dozens of Samaritans, treks the trails of southern Arizona regularly, trying to save migrants in a desert where hundreds die every year.
At least 216 – probably more – had died in the year that ended Aug. 31, up 29 percent from the same period a year earlier.
But that count is based on bodies seen by medical examiners; no one knows how many others die in the desert.
Three Samaritans will read their stories of the border Friday night, personal stories ringing with truth far more profound than mere words in newspapers.
Their group made headlines worldwide after volunteers Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss were arrested July 9, 2005.
The two had been trying to take three extremely dehydrated and sick men to a hospital when the Border Patrol apprehended them.
Federal charges against them were dismissed a year ago, but their case changed the Samaritans’ protocol. Volunteers now avoid transporting severely ill immigrants.
“I definitely respect the situation, the fact we should not carry people to the hospital,” Ferguson says.
“But if I see a person dying on the ground in front of me, if it’s a Minuteman, a Border Patrol agent or a migrant, I won’t leave that person alone in the desert. How could anyone do that?”
Some Mexican men couldn’t, says Norma Price, a retired physician and volunteer with Samaritans since its genesis in July 2002.
The men encountered a fellow illegal immigrant, a diabetic with a blood pressure problem, near death in the desert.
“They didn’t even know him, but they carried him for two days,” Price says. “They knew they were going to get sent back” to Mexico.
“The fact that they were willing to sacrifice their trip to help him though they didn’t know him, to me that’s the good Samaritan.”
Almost every illegal immigrant in the desert is hungry, thirsty and suffering blistered feet, says Ted Parks, another Samaritan.
“Many, many times, they want us to call the Border Patrol,” he says. “They’re at the end of their rope.
“We see people who are traveling here under such horrible conditions, only to be treated like animals. They’re constantly afraid.”
Parks recalls many who gave up – one who was trying to reach his wife and children in Los Angeles; one trying to get back to Denver, where he had worked for eight years.
And Parks aches for the kids trying to reach their families.
Says Ferguson, “It’s embarrassing to arrest grandmothers and children. One Border Patrol agent even told me that.
“If they were left to just defend the borders, which is their job, they’d be happier.”
But as long as our militarized border forces our future unskilled laborers into the most dangerous terrain, the Samaritans will be there.
“If we did nothing more all these years than save one life, it would be worth it,” Ferguson says. “What if that life was yours?”
Billie Stanton may be reached at bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com and 573-4664.
Norma Price puts drops in the eyes of illegal immigrant Jesus Hernandez Barrera in 2003. Price, a retired physician, has volunteered with the Samaritans since the group formed in 2002.
Ferguson, like dozens of Samaritans, treks the trails of southern Arizona regularly, trying to save migrants in a desert where hundreds die every year.
Parks recalls many who gave up - one who was trying to reach his wife and children in Los Angeles; one trying to get back to Denver, where he had worked for eight years.
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IF YOU GO
Border stories will be shared at 7:30 p.m. Friday by Samaritan volunteers Kathryn Ferguson, Ted Parks and Dr. Norma Price during the Festival sin Frontera (festival without borders) at The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress St.
A $5 donation is suggested.
