1 Dead, Border Agent Hurt as Truck Crashes in Canal

A suspected illegal alien drowned and a Border Patrol agent was in critical condition Friday after the truck the agent was driving careened into the All-American Canal east of Calexico while chasing a car believed to be carrying other illegal aliens.

Border Patrol Agent John McCravey, 36, was flown to UC-San Diego Medical Center where he was listed in critical condition. The unidentified dead man had been arrested with two other men earlier on suspicion of being in the country illegally.

According to the California Highway Patrol, McCravey and Border Patrol officers in another vehicle were chasing a car down a dirt county road about 10 miles east of Calexico and just north of the Mexican border at about 7 a.m.

The car, believed to have been full of undocumented aliens, turned right at the All-American Canal, which carries water to Imperial County. A cloud of dust apparently obscured McCravey’s vision and his truck ran off the road and into the canal.

Two of the three men in custody in the back of the Border Patrol truck escaped through a broken window but were recaptured later, according to the CHP. The car McCravey had been chasing stopped about 100 yards away and its occupants fled across a bridge into Mexico.

Border Patrol, CHP and firefighters responded to the accident, which occurred just north of the Mexican border. But McCravey and the other man were trapped inside the partially submerged truck for about 20 minutes, a Calexico fireman said.

Once the two were freed, emergency workers administered CPR and first aid.

“His heart was trembling,” Jerry Gonzalez, a Calexico fireman, said of McCravey. “There was no pulse until we got him to the (Calexico) hospital.”

Efforts to revive the other man were unsuccessful. Border Patrol officials declined to release his name. His body is in the custody of the Imperial County coroner.

McCravey works in the Border Patrol’s El Centro sector. Approximately 225 agents patrol the sector, which stretches from the sand hills near Yuma to the San Diego County line and north to Riverside.