U.S. and Mexican authorities have not yet taken a 60-year-old Mexican man to a hospital after he was seriously injured when he fell from the border wall in the remote desert about 20 kilometers west of Sasabe, Arizona, humanitarian aid workers said.

Sometime around midnight as Tuesday night wore on into Wednesday, the man attempted to cross the border into the U.S. by climbing over the 30-foot-high “bollard wall,” but was unable to make it over the wall. Contractors have continued to install panels for the border wall and build concrete ramps for vehicles near Tres Bellotas – a road that intersects with a nearby ranch.

Gail Kocourek, a longtime volunteer with the Tucson Samaritans, said she was driving down the road Wednesday when another volunteer spotted the man and they stopped to help him. They threw food and water through gaps in the border wall and he managed to crawl to the items. The man later crawled closer to the border wall, where he spoke to another volunteer about his injury.

Although there is a gate nearby, smugglers have repeatedly cut through the metal and contractors have repaired the gate by welding it shut, she said.

The man told Samaritans volunteers that he was with other people, including his nephew, and that he was one of the first to scale the wall. He said he fell and was unconscious for hours before he was able to drag himself under a mesquite tree, where he waited until members of the nonprofit humanitarian organization discovered him around 12:30 p.m.

Kocourek said the man had broken his tibia – one of the lower leg bones – and it had pierced his skin.

The volunteers called 911 and requested assistance from U.S. Border Patrol officials and the Arivaca Fire Department. At about 5:30 p.m., an Arivaca Fire Department ambulance arrived and firefighters administered intravenous fluids to the injured man, she said. Firefighters later pulled his leg through the wall and bandaged his wounds.

In photos taken by Kocourek, the injured man is limping around with a stick. A piece of bone protrudes from his leg.

Kocourek headed east, looking for other people who might have crossed the border.

About 40 to 50 minutes later, several border guards arrived. One of the officers told Kocourek he would stay as long as he could, she said. Hours later, Kocourek said, the injured man was still waiting in the desert for rescue.

Since the US did not build the border wall directly on the border, but within the Roosevelt Reservation – an easement area owned by the federal government – the injured man is on American soil, but no officials were able to reach him on Wednesday evening to transport him for medical treatment.

The remote stretch of Sasabe has been a major crossing point for migrants for months. In December, just days before Christmas, migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti and Lebanon, as well as Chad and Cameroon, endured freezing rain and waited for hours to be evacuated by volunteers. In the months that followed, more migrants arrived in the region.

In February and late July, small groups of men from Nepal and India, as well as families from Mexico, entered the harsh desert. The cartels’ activities – including widespread violence in Sasabe, Sonora – drove hundreds of Mexicans north, while migrants are pushed into the remote desert by smuggling organizations.

Although arrests have dropped dramatically since President Joe Biden issued a proclamation in June restricting access to asylum for most migrants who enter the United States illegally, small groups of people continue to make their way through the desert east of Sasabe, about 60 miles southwest of Tucson.

In mid-June, two Border Patrol vehicles collided along the border road, injuring one officer and four migrants. The officer was flown by helicopter to Banner University Medical Center, the Border Chronicle reported.

One man told the Tucson Sentinel in July that he and his friends – all Sikhs from Punjab – spent nearly $30,000 to enter the United States. They flew to Central America through the United Arab Emirates and then traveled by bus through Mexico. Near the border, cartel members each paid $10,000 for permission to travel through northern Sonora, they said.

The man, who asked the Tucson Sentinel not to use his name, said he fled to the United States because he and the other men were being mistreated because of their faith. Another man rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and showed reporters burn scars from an attack by Hindu fundamentalists.

“We cannot stay at home,” he said. “We came here to find safety, to find protection from the United States, where we can believe what we want to believe. That is freedom,” he said.

Kocourek said Mexican officials from the Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDNA) had been asked to assist the injured man but were told they would not arrive until Thursday morning.

As a thunderstorm approached, volunteers found a large raincoat that had been left in the desert and passed it through gaps in the border wall to the injured man, where he remained waiting until Wednesday night.