Hernan had been out for five days.
A member of a group of 60 people, he said that they had kept mostly to the mountains. When Hernan was left behind, or split from the group, or became lost, they were close--another day, maybe two, from a pickup, and he told us of numerous people in the group having bloody feet.
Hernan hadn't eaten in two days. By the time we came across him, lying on the side of the road, he hadn't gone to the bathroom in over 24 hours. He'd been vomiting, but had nothing left in his stomach.
It was just after dark, and he had a fire lit for himself, was laid out next to it, a warm gallon of water from a water drop and a makeshift walking stick next to him.
Muscle cramps are a significant sign of heat exhaustion, as well as hyponatremia--not enough salt in the system--and Hernan had cramps bad enough that it caused him pain just to sit up, let alone walk.
Confusion, decreased consciousness and hallucinations are also symptoms of hyponatremia. But Hernan seemed lucid. He preferred to speak in English rather than Spanish and talked about his wife in Louisiana, and his three kids, in Mexico, in a small town on the border with Belize. But he also said he saw six bears in the mountains, and bears are rare, if not non-existent, in the area we were in.

The area is called Chavez Siding. We take that route for water drops and patrols once or twice a week, but other than these trips it is rare for a vehicle to pass through--maybe a rancher, maybe an occasional Border Patrol truck, but they are few.
We'd been taking that road from camp, out to the highway recently--an extra hour or so back to Tucson--because the road is infrequently traveled, yet cuts right through a major corridor for people moving north.
Hernan laid down next to a place called Grey Well--the only potable water source in the area--and the site of a wind mill and water tank.
There had been a medical evacuation from this spot during the summer of 2009, so we already knew the only location for cell reception was the top of the windmill.
While one stayed with Hernan, another of us climbed the windmill to call 911.
It took six or seven tries to communicate everything we needed, having to be transferred between Sheriff's departments on each call back after losing reception.
Our location was about 40 minutes by dirt road from Interstate 19. An ambulance wasn't going to reach us, so we told the Sheriff's Office we'd drive Hernan out to the road, where an ambulance would be waiting.

As we drove out Hernan kept falling asleep--decreased consciousness maybe, or just exhaustion. At one point, he asked us to pull apart his chap stick container and remove the small amount of money that was rolled inside; then he fell asleep again. A Border Patrol helicopter began circling half way to the highway, spotlighting us as we drove. The road wasn't smooth--winding up over Red Spring Pass, around Upper Puerto Tank, dips and turns, all dirt and rock--yet Hernan was hardly awake for most of it.
About five minutes before we got to the highway we were stopped by two Border Patrol agents who insisted Hernan move from the car to the back of their truck--the type styled upon dog catchers. They cited the air conditioning as being beneficial for him. But there's no A.C. in the back of those trucks, only hard bench seats and a small 10"x16" caged window, and the only connection to the main cab is an intercom. I told them he'd been vomiting, asking if we could just keep him in the car, as we were almost there. The said something about their policies, and said that they could let him vomit all they wanted to in the back of their truck--it was used to it.

Hernan spent three days in St. Mary's hospital in Tucson. Through the work of a volunteer who is also a nurse there, he was able to make a phone call home just before being deported.

It's terrible but not uncommon for groups to start out large and decrease in size the farther they move. People become sick, too tired, subject to heat exhaustion, hypothermia, knee or ankle injuries, terrible blisters, are the victims of robberies and beatings, are 'dusted' by Border Patrol helicopters intentionally trying to split and disorient groups, they might sleep too long and wake up alone, walk too slowly and gradually become so far behind they are lost, or fall victim to countless other factors that occur daily in the desert.
The term 'human-smuggling' is often used instead of migration--it lends a certain urgency for enforcement to the situation. Some believe that because people coming north use guides, or 'coyotes' it is smuggling.
Though the benefits and pitfalls of the 'guiding industry' in migration deserves its own post here, it should be noted that the necessity of a guide, or being a part of a group for days on end in the middle of the desert in order to get into this country is a result of U.S. border enforcement strategies, not a human smuggling racket.
Of course people are going to need to know where to go when they are forced into more and more remote areas of the desert and forced to walk days through rougher and rougher terrain. The number of deaths and medical evacuations would be significantly higher each month if every person who crossed was by themselves, just wandering aimlessly north from the border, thinking they'd know when they got somewhere.
As it is, as of the end of July, the number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector was 214. A fraction of the actual deaths.

The next day, patrols went out from camp to Chavez, on the report of the group of 60. They found tracks, a water drop of 40 gallons completely used up, but at least in that one area, no one else left behind.