Two U.S. Marines were killed and another was hospitalized in “serious condition” on Tuesday in a “vehicle accident” that occurred near the southern border between the United States and Mexico.
In a Tuesday press release shared by U.S. Northern Command on X, formerly Twitter, Joint Task Force Southern Border Public Affairs announced, “Three service members deployed in support of Joint Task Force Southern Border were involved in a vehicle accident at approximately 8:50 a.m. MDT today near Santa Teresa, N.M. Two of the service members were killed while one remains in serious condition at a local hospital facility.”
Joint Task Force Southern Border explained that the names of the U.S. service members killed in Tuesday’s vehicle accident “will not be released until the next of kin have been notified.” Officials also confirmed that the cause of Tuesday’s vehicle accident remains under investigation.
READ MORE: Trump puts US military in control of southern border land strip
Sources familiar with Tuesday’s vehicle accident identified the two deceased service members and the injured service member as U.S. Marines and told The New York Post that the accident occurred as the Marines were driving a civilian jeep on a two-lane highway and attempted to pass another vehicle. The sources told The New York Post that the vehicle fell into a 10-foot ditch known as “Snake Canyon,” which is often used by smugglers, and crashed into solid rock.
One source described Snake Canyon as “treacherous, while another source told The New York Post, “It would be a horrible place to go off the road because the canyon is right off the shoulder. It has concrete tunnels that run underneath the highway and we have sensors there because illegal aliens hide under it and then get picked up by a load vehicle.”
A source told The New York Post that a U.S. Border Patrol agent who attempted to save the three service members involved in Tuesday’s accident was “covered head to toe” in blood after responding to the incident. The outlet reported that the two deceased service members were airlifted to a local hospital before dying from their injuries. Meanwhile, sources told The New York Post that the third service member injured in Tuesday’s accident remains in critical but stable condition.
© American Military News