New insight into University Hospital’s response to 26 overheated migrants

BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — Always ready for the unknown. University Hospital is providing new insight about their response, last Thursday, when staff got a call about migrants needing urgent care. The 26 migrants were found in extremely hot conditions in the area of 1604 and Oak Island Drive.

There is an area in the hospital essentially called ‘Central Monitor’. It is a dispatch room where emergency calls and requests come in.

University Hospital Assistant Director of Emergency Services Rhiannon Rasmussen is one of the leaders who helps coordinates when the calls start to roll in.

“The unknown is what always keeps us on our toes,” she said. “Every day is something. It is always surprising.”

In the room, timing is critical. Central Monitor even has a view to the bay overlooking where the patients are being rushed in to the hospital. In last week’s human smuggling case, 12 of the 26 migrants were taken to University Hospital.

“They send out a notification saying EMS is on scene of a mass casualty,” she said. “We are expecting anywhere from 20 to 40 patients.”

The call came from STRAC or the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council. The staff then immediately gets to work to figure out logistics.

“We are looking at how many active patients we have, currently,” she said. “Where can we see patients, they level of acuity we can take in at that time.”

The migrants were found in south Bexar County. Sheriff Javier Salazar said the migrants were located in what he called a shack. He said it had buckets for toilets, no AC, or running water. BCSO reported the migrants were smuggled in a compartment on a trailer, and traveled in the heat for several hours.

“We were really lucky that they seemed to have found them really quickly,” Rasmussen said. “We have to be ready, and we still have patients that we are caring for.”

Rasmussen talked about the injuries they saw that day.

“We only had minor heat related injuries as being overheated,” she said. “Some of them told us, they had been in the states a little over 20 days. A lot of them did tell us they hadn’t eaten in a while. There were some dehydrated patients.”

She said some had hand lacerations and shoulder injuries. Rasmussen added this could have been worse.

“This one, EMS did an amazing job getting to them,” she said.

The last patient was just released this week. She said all were adults, the youngest being 18-years-old. In this case, seven people are facing several charges.