College Starts Fund for Mexican Injured in Attempt to Enter U.S.

A special fund to help the recovery of a Mexican man who was paralyzed while illegally entering the United States has been established by the Orange Coast College Foundation, it was announced Tuesday.

Money donated to the fund will be used to pay the medical bills and other expenses of Juan Jose Buenrostro, a 31-year-old Mexican national who was critically injured in December.

A story on Buenrostro appeared in Tuesday’s editions of The Times.

Doug Bennett, executive director of institutional advancement at the Costa Mesa college, said the foundation decided to set up the fund after The Times and the school received more than 75 telephone calls Tuesday regarding Buenrostro’s plight.

Buenrostro was injured when he strapped himself onto the bottom of an Orange Coast College bus that had taken a group of students to Tijuana on a field trip. Although he remained hidden as the bus crossed the border into the United States, his left arm eventually became entangled in the drive shaft and he sustained grave head injuries when he fell off the bus.

He was left in a coma and his left arm was amputated.

Buenrostro, who has four young daughters, was taken back to Mexico where he is being cared for my his mother. He remains comatose.

Bennett said the school had received dozens of calls from people wanting to donate money to help the Buenrostro family. Collections, he said, would go toward physical therapy for Buenrostro, medical supplies and support for his wife and four children.

“It will all depend on how much money we raise,” Bennett said. “It may be a wheelchair or food or clothing. It all depends.”

Donations can be sent to the Orange Coast College Foundation, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa 92628. Checks should be made payable to the Orange Coast College Foundation with a notation that the money is for the Juan Buenrostro fund.