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Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. Take it away, Richard. I need to tell you, I'm probably the last person in the world who was cut out ever to be a cop. I took my degree in astrophysics, and right there that means you're not this rough, tough individual.
You're very much intellectual. However, let me tell you how astrophysicists got their jobs. They didn't go to the help wanted sections, they went to the obits.
The year I graduated, no one wanted to lay down and die, so, you know, right there I have a problem. Further, Uncle Sam sent me a letter saying, hey, you know, it was nice enough to give you student loans and stuff like that, and that would be nice enough if you started paying that back, so I had to find a job. Now, I started looking around, and fortunately I had taken a lot of classes in psychology and sociology and stuff like that, and I was always somewhat interested in police work, so I went down to our local police department, and they were hiring, I put in an application, I tested for the position, and they did a background check and all that stuff, and I figured, yeah, it'll be a cold day in you-know-where before they ever call me.
Well, guess what? About three months later, they called me, said, hey, are you interested in becoming a board? I said, yeah, you know, I needed a job, what can I say? So I went aboard. Well, I wound up, you know, looking at a police officer, and I began to realize that maybe this isn't what I wanted. And then I got injured in the line of duty, and I mean, it just really seriously, you know, threw me into a tailspin. I wound up leaving that department for another department, then Sheriff Toby Madrid approached me and said, hey, I need a deputy, would you be interested in coming aboard? And I said, yeah, I'd be interested.
So I joined the Conest County Sheriff's Office. And I remember it was the 27th of December, it's a day I'll never forget. It was cold, you know, after all, a couple days after Christmas in the San Luis Valley, hey, it should be cold. It was a quiet night up to that point, it was a Saturday night. And Saturday nights have a way of going south on you really, really quick.
Well, there's a town in Conest County called Antmedal, Colorado. Well, what happened on a Saturday night, the kids would drag Maine. What that means, you know, they're just cruising Maine, they're in a car, they just go up Main Street, get to the city limits, make a U-turn, come back into town, you know, just repeat the cycle.
You know, after all, we didn't have cable TV down there yet, stuff like that, so you had to do something. Well, we get word of a wreck just north of Antmedal. What had been happening here is the city police have been, you know, after the kids, you know, stopped doing U-turns in town, you know, it's not safe.
Well, all they did was rather than, you know, have the cops hassle them, they just went up a little bit out into the county and there was a crossroads there, they would make their U-turn there. Well, that's where the wreck was. It was right outside a little nightclub called the Rainbow Nightclub. I was within a mile of it and so I go down there. And as I'm coming up, all of a sudden I realize that this car has not been hit.
It's been ran over by a semi. I get out, you know, I got my cruiser position there and, of course, everybody in the bar is coming out. And they want to see what the heck's going on. I mean, it's, you know, a little bit like sharks, you know, showing up, you know, when there was a little bit of blood in the water.
They got to see what's going on. Well, I get out there and the first thing I see is that the, literally the front end of the car is crumpled down like a tin can. And I run up there and I can see the passenger, he's in bad shape. I mean, he's torn up pretty good. He's unconscious and, you know, he's barely able to breathe and stuff like that.
I can't see the driver. I mean, the car's literally crumpled down around him and there's two girls in the back seat. They look like they're OK. The only person I saw that right away that I knew was a guy by the name of Pat Rice. Funny part about it was Pat had been an inmate in our jail a couple weeks before. The Red Cross had just recently come down and recertified us on first aid and CPR. And Pat was a trustee and he saw this and he thought to himself, hey, this looks pretty cool, stuff like that. And I said, hey, you know, can I take this? I might need it someday. And I told myself, I'll tell you what, I will pay for your class and your test, provided if I ever need you, you're there for me.
OK, that's cool. Well, guess what? I collected that night. And he and I went over there and we started getting the girls out of the car. I had to crawl into the car. We got the first girl out, OK, but the other girl, she was kind of pinned in the car a little bit by the seat.
I had to get in there and push the seat off of her and she had to crawl over me to get out. Now we've got the driver and the passenger. I'm very reluctant to move the passenger because I can see that he is seriously injured.
And I'm very much afraid that if I move him, I'm going to do more damage than good. And I'm trying to find the driver. So I'm reaching through the wreckage and I found him.
And astonishingly, he's still alive. He's unconscious also. So we're there and I'm just going from one, from the passenger to the driver, passenger to the driver. I'm checking to make sure they have a pulse, stuff like that.
I'm waiting for the ambulance to show up. I just checked the passenger. I go back to the driver, checked him. Go back to the passenger.
Nothing. In about 10 seconds between the time I checked him, going back to the driver to check him, his heart had stopped. And that's when I yelled at Pat. I said, he's in full arrest. Let's get him out of here and start doing CPR.
You want to find out what kind of shape you're in? Do CPR on a fellow human being. I mean, it is a demanding task. And once you start, you don't stop.
That's all there is to it. So here's dozens of people standing around watching this. Me and another guy are fighting to keep somebody alive. And the EMTs finally showed up. I remember one of the EMTs jumped out and yelled, who's worse? And I pointed down and said, he is. And Pat was exhausted. He had been sitting there doing CPR along with me.
I'll join us. EMT joins me and we start doing CPR. I took over the breathing part of it. Well, if he did the compression, the guy threw up in my mouth and that did it. I mean, I had nothing left.
I walked away. I mean, I kind of stumbled away and I started throwing up. When Pat saw me throwing up, he started throwing up. And I remember somebody starts laughing and say, what's the matter, Rice?
Can't you take it? And Pat hauled off and popped the guy in the face. And the guy comes, I don't want to press charges like that. And I just basically looked at him and says, get the hell out of here. Well, we wound up having to take the car apart to get the driver out. Passenger died at the scene. I mean, there was nothing we could do for him. Got him out, got him flat for life to Denver, where he wound up dying.
The two girls made it through just fine. After we got more help out there, it sent Pat and I to get cleaned up. And when we got to the Sheriff's Office, I saw what we looked like. We were cut from head to toe with other people's blood. And the funny part about it was we were actually starving to death. We were hungry beyond the measure. So I made us a couple of sandwiches and stuff like that.
We washed our hands, we sit there and we ate while covered with somebody else's blood. And I remember a few days before that, I had a discussion with my parents. They thought I had a pretty cake job.
They completely neglected the fact that as a police officer, there was a very real chance every time I left home that I'd never be coming back. Well, I decided to show them just what kind of a cake job I had. I had the dispatcher take a picture of me.
Here I am, covered head to toe with somebody else's blood. I had him take a picture of me. And I was staying with my folks at the time.
When I got home, I left that picture on the dining room table. So next time they told me that I had a cake job, all they had to do was look at that. A couple weeks later, I was working a basketball game, provided security for it.
And I just walked out to check the parking lot and I walked back in. And all of a sudden there was this little cheerleader standing in front of me. She's in uniform. And she sticks out her hand and she introduces herself. And she says, I want to thank you for trying to save my brother's life. I remember I stammered something and for a long time it haunted me. I didn't have an answer for her.
What was the point of her brother passing away? What happened here? Did any good come out of it?
Well, there is some good. It took me a long time to realize it. And I'm a man of prayer and I'm a man of faith. And I used to pray to God, what was the point of all this?
Was it wasted? And then in the course of writing my first novel, I'm relating the incident. What I've done is I've taken the incident and put it in, I mean it happened to somebody else basically.
But in the middle of all this, he's talking to his pastor about it. And the answer came. Were you the same person you were when this was over? And I had to admit I wasn't. I mean, that evening I was seriously thinking about hanging up law enforcement forever. I mean, like I said, I took my degree in astrophysics.
I'm an intellectual. Last thing I ever thought myself of, I guess, was a tough guy out there, you know, to fight and wrestle around with the bad guys and stuff like that. I enjoyed the detective work, but I didn't enjoy that part of it.
Well, guess what? That night changed me. In this case, it transformed me for the good.
It made me realize, at least on some level, I was out there trying to make a difference. Richard Muniz's story, The Wreck, here on Our American Stories. Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win. And get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for?
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