Counting the costs

Immigration reform may wait, but the tab is running for border-state hospitals—and others—that must provide services to illegal immigrants | John Dawson

TUCSON — Arizona hospitals are still paying for a horrific accident last month when a white Chevy Suburban carrying 20 Mexican and Salvadoran nationals rolled several times Aug. 7 after its 20-year-old driver tried to outmaneuver U.S. Border Patrol agents. He attempted a sharp, high-speed turn to avoid spike strips on Martinez Lake Road about 30 miles north of Yuma, Ariz., in a failed attempt to drive around a border checkpoint.

Federal agents from the Yuma sector initially spotted the SUV near daybreak trying to run past the checkpoint on a dirt road. After the vehicle came to a rest, the Yuma County Sheriff's Department spokesman described the passengers as stacked like "cord wood" inside the crushed vehicle. Five passengers were pronounced dead on the scene. Six others died at hospitals, including the fetus of a pregnant 17-year-old who also died.