Man Trapped Between San Diego Border Fences, Rescued By Firefighters

OTAY MESA, CA — San Diego firefighters rescued a man stuck between the border walls between California and Mexico in Otay Mesa, Thursday.

Shortly before 7 a.m., emergency responders arrived at the scene near Britannia Court and Britannia Boulevard in Otay Mesa.

There, Cal Fire San Diego firefighters rescued the trapped man, hanging from one of the two border fences, roughly 30 feet off the ground, Public Safety Media Services Manager for the City of San Diego, José Ysea confirmed to KUSI. How he got there was not immediately released.

After scaling the roughly 30-foot-tall fence, the man was unable to get down again due to coils of razor wire recently installed on the structure as an added deterrent to unlawful immigration.

"It took firefighters equipped with a long extension ladder about 45 minutes to get the uninjured man back down to solid ground," SDFRD Battalion Chief Kyle Kutzke told reporters at the scene.

During the rescue, the concertina wire "was kind of an obstacle for all of us, for the person that was up there, and ... it was something that we had to work around (during) the assistance we were providing," Kutzke said.

According to reports, firefighters maneuvered a ladder truck to conduct the rescue, and an ambulance was also at the scene. Border Patrol officers also responded, and the man was safely rescued from the wall by 10 a.m.

According to KUSI reports, no further information would be provided about the person's nationality or the circumstances leading up to his entrapment. Others at the scene say that the man was "attempting to sneak over the U.S. Border from Mexico."

This is not the first time this sort of rescue has taken place at the Britannia Boulevard and Britannia Court border crossing location.

In May of 2022, three were rescued from atop the Otay Mesa Border Wall. None were injured in that instance, though all were detained.

In December of 2021, four people attempted the crossing, and three were seriously injured. "Three victims were transported to UC San Diego Medical Center in life-threatening condition. The fourth was taken into custody in that instance.

"About a half mile west of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, agents found four individuals that were either atop or had fallen from the international border barrier around 2:45 a.m.," according to Tekae Michael with the U.S. Border Patrol. Michael said that agents found three men suffering from leg injuries who had appeared to have fallen from the border wall. The fourth man was rescued via aerial ladder by the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

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