Some more food for thought:
(from local San Diego newspaper, 10/25/00)
The widow of a Valley Center man who was detained by Mexican officials for 18 hours following a car accident who later died of complications applauded the U.S. Senate for unanimously approving a resolution intended to protect other injured U.S. citizens traveling south of the border.
The resolution, approved Thursday, calls on President Clinton to negotiate an agreement with the Mexican government that protects U.S. citizens traveling in Mexico. Specifically, lawmakers want Mexican officials to grant a humanitarian exemption to the current bond requirements that prevent the release of American citizens who are injured.
The Kraft family is now suing Antonio Garcia Sanchez, then-Baja California state attorney general on human rights, who was driving the other car involved in the accident, and whom the family says is responsible for holding up Donald Kraft's transfer to the United States.
Kraft, a Valley Center father of three, suffered a broken neck in the car accident on a toll road near Ensenada on Aug. 24, 1999. He and his family were vacationing in Mexico.
Mexican law requires someone deemed responsible for a car accident to post bail before being released for treatment in the United States.
Kraft, 44, was detained 18 hours in an Ensenada clinic by Mexican officials while they waited for his family to post a $7,000 cash bond for his release. He died Sept. 6, 1999, of pneumonia in a San Diego hospital.
"In a severe accident, surgeons refer to the first hour as the 'golden hour,' in which lifesaving procedures are most effective," Hunter said Tuesday. "When American families spend the 'golden hour' trying to raise large sums of money to get their loved ones released so that they can be transferred to American medical facilities, lives can be lost."
In November, three Orange County men were involved in an accident that killed the driver and left two others injured. Family members were required to post an $11,000 bond before one of the victims was allowed to be transferred to San Diego for treatment.