A male migrant from El Salvador lost his foot when he tried to climb aboard a Mexican train headed toward the United States, but fell and was run over by one of the wheels, according to a Salvadoran report published Monday.
The incident took place as a freight train known as “La Bestia,” Spanish for “The Beast,” passed through the village of Chahuites, Isthmus of Tehuantepec, on Friday. The nickname is in regard to how many people have been injured or died while riding the train, though exact numbers are unknown.
Video shows people attempting to climb aboard the moving train as it passes through the town. A man in a red shirt can be seen running alongside the train looking for a ladder to jump onto so that he can climb up to the top of the cargo car.
But as he jumps, he falls and has one or both of his feet immediately crushed by the steel wheels of the train.
The man is around 40 years old and was taken to a local hospital immediately after the incident. Mexico’s Institute of National Migration told La Jornada the man is in critical condition and may need to be transferred to another hospital for better care.
Up until the last few years, The Beast was widely used by Central Americans and Mexicans moving from southern Mexico to different parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The U.S.-based Migration Policy Institute estimated in 2014 as many as 500,000 Central American people annually boarded the freight trains during their travels to the U.S.
[Read: New migrant caravan relying on ‘Beast’ train to get through Mexico for free]
The Mexican government announced in July 2014 people would no longer be allowed to climb aboard the train. They set up checkpoints and border patrols to ensure cooperation. In the last two years, many migrants fleeing poverty, violence, and unemployment have chosen to travel as part of caravans to the U.S. instead of on atop the train.
“We ride ‘The Beast’ because we do not have money, we have been asking for coins from town to town, we have been fleeing from violence. We did not go out for pleasure, but out of necessity. We know that there are risks and it shows what happened with our Salvadoran brother who lost both feet, that saddens us a lot,” an unnamed migrant told La Jornada.
