Look Left, Look Right, Step Up by The Gent

While on Line Watch as a Border Patrol Agent watching the levee road near Paso Del Norte bridge in El Paso, Texas, a 12-year-old Mexican boy, who was begging under the bridge, came running up to me and my partner Arnie Brazell and told us there was a body floating in the canal which ran perpendicular from the bridge along the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) river. We immediately drove as close as we could to the canal. I jumped out of the vehicle took off my belt with my firearm and ran down the slippery side of the canal into the rapid running water trying to catch up with the body. I did manage to catch up. The body was that of a male. It was bloated. The male was obviously dead. He had a big gash on his head.

Little did I know that I had an audience watching. There were tourists watching from the Paso Del Norte, and a dozen or so Mexican children that were begging under the bridge. The children came there when the headgates had the river really low (Arnie and I felt bad for them and allowed them to stay there.) It seemed like minutes later a TV camera crew showed up, Wow!

I proceeded to try and drag the body by its shirt collar up the sides of the canal. Bad idea!!! I had my boots on, (another bad idea) and kept slipping as I tried to climb out of the canal. I also had another problem. A giant turbofan, 50 yards in front of me. I started to really worry when I realized I couldn’t get up the canal slope with all the slimy moss on the slippery cement with the body in tow. What do I do? Do I let the body go and have it get torn up on the turbofan while all those people watched? I was approaching the fan real fast. It was quite a dilemma. If I let go would people realize why? I wasn’t even sure I could get up the slope on my own!

Suddenly, I look up and see a line of young Mexican beggar boys, hand in hand with Arnie, and there was one of them close to me reaching out. Those boys dragged me up the slope to safety with my bloated body still in tow. I am still unsure what I would have done to this day. It made the local TV news. I thanked the boys profusely as they cautiously waded back to the Mexican side of the border. It has always stayed with me that the little gesture of kindness that Arnie and I gave the boys by allowing them to stay under the bridge didn’t save my life. Acts of kindness have a strange way of doing that.