KC Counts talks with Lt. Gilbert Armendariz of Doña Ana County Fire Rescue about what the Swift Water Rescue Team encountered Monday night. Here's a transcript of their conversation:
KC:
Why don't you describe for us what happened to this man and everything that happened after he drove into the Arroyo to create such a tense situation?
Lt. Armendariz:
Well, what had happened was that he was trying to cross the Arroyo. The water was too deep, the water current was a little too powerful, so it swept his truck and he was swept down the Arroyo all the way down to the Rio Grande. And so he was stuck in the Rio Grand on top of his roof until we could access him.
KC:
What distance is that that his vehicle traveled?
Lt. Armendariz:
Oh, it was quite a distance, I would say about 200 yards. I'm just guesstimating, but it was quite a distance. They were unable to walk back to the roadway because of the distance.
KC:
And now, if I understand correctly from a news release, it said - there were multiple agencies on this, so we got news releases from multiple agencies. His son was nearby and actually tried to rescue him himself and then also got caught up in the current.
Lt. Armendariz:
Yes, ma'am. That's correct. When we made contact with them, we discovered that the son was on scene, also stuck in the water with them.
KC:
And to make matters a little more complicated, we ended up having two rescuers get caught up in debris as well.
Lt. Armendariz:
Yes, that was before we got on scene. There were some other agencies on scene trying to rescue the two individuals.
KC:
So, give us a little bit of an idea of, once then you're on scene, how your operation unfolded from there.
Lt. Armendariz:
Well, we got on scene, but we didn't really get close to the patient initially because when we were on our way, we hit an Arroyo that was flooded with water and we were trying to decide whether we can cross without putting ourselves in danger. We were still about 5 miles south of his location. And we didn't have anybody on scene with him to give us a status update, whether he was OK or not, so we made the decision to continue on across the arroyo. We had to cross several arroyos to get to his general location. We were still not close enough. So we staged a kind of a safety operation in case he was to get taken by the water. We would be downstream ready to catch them. Well, after some time, the water subsided, and we were able to cross that Arroyo and we were able to make contact almost directly at his location and that's where the rescue took place.
KC:
Now, as far as we know, there weren't serious injuries, right?
Lt. Armendariz:
No.
KC:
So, a happy ending here. How long did it take you to get everyone out of the water? Once you arrived on the scene?
Lt. Armendariz:
It took us a while because of the access because of the waters. We couldn’t get close enough to make a direct rescue. I tried air support, I tried to see if maybe we can rescue them from the air if we couldn't access them by land. Resources were not available to make that happen, so it took us a while. We kind of had to let the weather allow us to make access to them. So once, once the water finally subsided, we were able to continue north on 185 and and get close enough to make the rescue.
KC:
You say a while. Is that like an hour?
Lt. Armendariz:
No, ma'am. It was probably like 4 hours.
KC:
So where would this rank for you? I mean in terms of just difficulty and all of those circumstances for your operation. Is this one of the more difficult ones you've been on?
Lt. Armendariz:
It's definitely one of the more challenging scenes that I've managed, or commanded. There was quite a few different agencies involved, and one of the difficulties is the communication. Not every agency had the same frequency as us, so there was a communication challenge there; but given the complex nature of a swift water rescue, it was definitely one of the most challenging.
KC:
And what lessons would you like for the public in general to learn from this story?
Lt. Armendariz:
Most definitely. If you see water across an arroyo, don't try to drive through it. Just turn around. As they say, turn around, don't drown. You don't know how deep the water is. You don't know how strong those currents could be. And so, it's not worth risking.
KC:
What else do you think is important for anyone to know about this situation before I let you go?
Lt. Armendariz:
I would like to thank all the agencies that responded. They were a tremendous help. We could not have done it without them. So we really appreciate the camaraderie and working together to get this accomplished.
KC:
How were those patients once you did pull them out of the water? What was their mood like at that point? It must have been a really terrifying ordeal.
Lt. Armendariz:
It was very terrifying for them, but they were very happy to be out of the water. They were very tired. They were very exhausted, but they were very happy to see us.
KC:
And grateful, no doubt. All right, well, Lieutenant Armendariz, thank you so much for spending this time with us to tell us a little bit about what you do when you're called into a situation like this and and what we can do to avoid it in the first place. We appreciate your time.
Lt. Armendariz:
Definitely. All right. Thank you very much.
