Hypothermia

Nighttime temperatures can dip into the teens this time of year. Two weeks ago, during a cold snap, temperatures were in the single digits for four nights straight. Daytime temperatures never got above sixty.
Hypothermia in the desert is a strange concept to those who have never been here--those who associate deserts with heat, and drought, and sand. But it snowed here last month, and those crossing rarely carry more than an extra sweatshirt or sweater on their journeys. There are no shelters along the way to rest, and get warm in, no pre-built fire rings that are safe from view, no stoves or hot drinks to fight off the chill.

In October and early November, volunteers found the bodies of migrants. Both died close to desert roads, within hours of the volunteers' arrival. The causes of death for both people were exposure and hypothermia.
Death by hypothermia is a torturous way to die. You don't drift off to a sweet, warm sleep, never to wake, as is a common belief. There are stages that often take days to have full effect.

Technically, hypothermia begins whenever the core body temperature goes below 95 degrees. With this comes shivering, blue lips and fingers, headaches and fatigue. As the body's temperatures drop the shivering becomes more uncontrollable, even violent, and the mind becomes disoriented.
When the core temperature drops below 90, the shivering stops. The body puts more effort into keeping vital organs warm, so the extremities lose their blood flow, while the heart and respiratory rates and blood pressure increase. Amnesia sets in, as does a loss of motor control, and pain--fingers and hands become immobile, and the stumbling begins, leading to a complete inability to walk.

Hypothermia can make a person go crazy.
Terminal burrowing can occur, where a person tries to dig into the ground, or crawl into crevices, under fallen trees, or piles of rocks.
More often, paradoxical undressing takes place, where those suffering from hypothermia will begin to undress, and are found with extra clothing and blankets strewn about. One cause of this is that the muscles used to contract the peripheral blood vessels become exhausted, leading to a rush of blood, and thus a hot feeling in the extremities.

There is no time safer than another to cross the desert. If it's not the heat, it's the cold, if not the terrain, the wildlife, the length of the journey, the bandits, the violent (human) coyotes, or the blister inducing, slippery rock causing rain, among countless other factors.
Despite the freezing temperatures, it has hardly rained this winter--giving those crossing at least one temporary reprieve.

Celery and Lettuce

Norberto is 26. He's from Oaxaca, in Southern Mexico, where his wife and 5 month old son are.
On Norberto's fifth day in the desert, he decided he couldn't continue. At a water station--the first they'd encountered their entire journey--he told his group to continue without him.
Norberto had tried crossing a month earlier, farther west, from Sonoita, Mexico, onto the Tohono O'odham Reservation, where he found no water for days. He was apprehended on his fifth day out and deported to Nogales.
He had clean water during this crossing, but his stomach was still upset. It was about 4 p.m. when I came across him, sitting on the side of the road near Grey Well in Chavez Siding, one hundred feet from where we met Hernan--suffering from heat exhaustion--the month before. He had put a white bag in the road, weighed down by rocks, and that was the first thing I saw and slowed for.
He ate fruit cups and granola bars and we talked, discussed where we were, different aspects of his health, the size of his group, what his options could be. Norberto was intending to walk to Phoenix. He didn't know it was 170 miles away. I told him I could call Border Patrol for him, and he thought about it for sometime.

Norberto has got four brothers. Three of them pick celery and romaine lettuce in Salinas, California. That was his destination. Another brother works in a restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey. I told him I was from New Jersey, but my brother was in North Carolina. He said he has cousins in North Carolina and friends in South Carolina that pick tobacco. He said there's no work in Oaxaca, no money anywhere.
After some time he decided to go home, to have Border Patrol pick him up. He didn't want to cross again, but go home to Oaxaca.

We continued to talk while we waited, and waited, and waited for Border Patrol. We joked about how when you don't want Border Patrol around, there are too many of them, and when you want them, they never come.
He mentioned he had a friend in the group, Simone, who also fell behind earlier in the day, just after the water drop. He was younger, smaller than Norberto, wearing a white shirt, had a silver tooth, and Norberto had his backpack. Simone had cramps and was having trouble walking. The water drop he talked about was only 20 minutes from where we sat, so we at least had a starting point for a search.
It was nearly dark by this time. Two more calls and two transfers to Border Patrol didn't get them to us any quicker and Norberto just wanted to go. He wanted to drive with me. He said he would just get out of the car as soon as we saw Border Patrol, and stand and wait so I wouldn't get in trouble. If we got to the highway without seeing them, he would try to hitchhike. If he got a ride, great, if he didn't, well, he'd accept it. He made the plan seem so simple.
But now it was too dark to look for Simone.

Another call to the Nogales Station and finally a unit was on its way. They were still forty minutes out, and I told them we would meet them on the road. We started to drive and Norberto started feeling sick. Up and around the dirt roads, cresting out on hills with quick dips at the top that make your stomach jump. Coming around a sharp turn, just where another water drop is, our headlights cut across a person standing behind a mesquite tree, shielding their eyes. It was Simone, half an hour north from where Norberto stayed behind; he waited on the road after passing more water.
We told him we were going to meet Border Patrol. He said ok and got in the car. Then he got out and vomited. He had clean water his entire journey too. Said it was just his nerves. We sat on the road while he calmed down, ate applesauce and canned fruit, and drank Gatorade.

The first questions the agents, with M-16s strapped around their chests, asked were not if they were sick, or injured, but if they had papers to be there, and where the rest of their group was.
I shook hands with Norberto and Simone, and we told each other to take care before they were loaded into the back of the truck. It is possible that Norberto is still in jail now, and could be for weeks, having been deported once already.
In jail for weeks for trying to get to California to pick celery and lettuce.