Immigrants Deported, by U.S. Hospitals

Although the National Hospital of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation is the only public rehabilitation hospital in Guatemala, it dedicates just 32 beds to rehabilitation and does not offer the specialized brain injury treatment that Mr. Jiménez needed. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

Half the hospital is devoted to orthopedic care and the other half serves as an "asylum" for profoundly disabled Guatemalans. A few weeks after he was brought there from Florida, the hospital discharged Mr. Jiménez, transferring him to a public acute-care hospital, where his brother found him "lying in the hallway on a stretcher, covered in his own excrement." Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

Michael R. Banks, an estate-planning lawyer who represented Mr. Jiménez in Florida, recently visited the National Hospital of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation in Guatemala City on his way to meet with Mr. Jiménez, who ended up with his elderly mother in a remote mountain village. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

Diana Gregory, the nurse from Martin Memorial who accompanied Mr. Jiménez back to Guatemala, said that she was impressed by the hospital she left him at in Guatemala City. "Their equipment looks like it could have been donated to the Smithsonian but it was functioning equipment and they used it," she said, adding: "That facility could have taken care of me any day." Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

After Mr. Jiménez arrived, the Guatemalan hospital contacted his common-law wife, Fabiana Domingo Laureano, who lived in Antigua, Guatemala, with their two young sons, and asked her to come get him. Ms. Domingo, who was 27 at the time, was shocked to learn that her husband was back and terrified by the request. Then as now, she was eking out a living, selling traditional woven clothing in the municipal marketplace while sharing a spare, concrete room with her sons in her parents' humble home. "I was already living from hand to mouth," she said. "How could I possibly have given him what he needs?" Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

With no other options, Mr. Jiménez's family brought him back to his home, outside the provincial city of Soloma. No medical care for his condition is available. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

From Soloma, the road to Mr. Jiménez's hamlet only goes so far, and the trip must be completed on foot, up and down a rutted dirt path through goat-strewn meadows. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

The New York Times took the trek to visit him in late June, Mr. Jiménez had not budged from his hilltop home since returning there and no medical professional had visited him, either. With his mother too frail to move him into his wheelchair, his life had shrunken to the confines of his bed, across from his mother's. Only the presence of visitors, who could help him into his wheelchair, gave Mr. Jiménez a rare chance to get out of bed. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

Since being hoisted in his wheelchair up a steep slope to his remote home, Mr. Jiménez, who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, has received no medical care or medication -- just Alka Seltzer and prayer, his 72-year-old mother, Petrona Gervacio Gaspar, said. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

To the surprise of his visitors, Mr. Jiménez, despite his background and brain injury, was able, and eager, to read a letter from his cousins in Florida. At first, Mr. Jiménez read haltingly, then more fluidly. Later, when all his visitors had gone outside, he picked up the letter and read the ending aloud again to himself, softly. "I want to tell you," he read, "that we miss you and love you. May God continue to bless you." Mr. Jiménez smiled, and repeated, "May God continue to bless you." Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times

With no access to medical care, Mr. Jiménez has suffered since returning home. Over the last year, his condition has deteriorated with routine and violent seizures, characterized by falls, protracted convulsions, a loud gurgling in the throat, the vomiting of blood and, finally, a collapse into unconsciousness. "Each time he loses a little more of himself," his mother said. Photo: Josh Haner/The New York Times