A video captured the actions of a vacationing U.S. Border Patrol agent who jumped into the Comal River near New Braunfels, Texas, to rescue a young girl. The girl became trapped by the undertow current near a dam and appeared to be in danger of drowning.
Border Patrol Agent Adan Sanchez and his wife Delia went to the popular tubing river in New Braunfels for a weekend of relaxation floating on the Comal. While taking a break near the New Braunfels City Tube Chute, he observed a young girl trapped at the base of the dam. The undertow repeatedly pulled her under the water, KSAT ABC12 in San Antonio reported.
“She could have drowned,” Sanchez told the San Antonio ABC affiliate. “She was going under. I think her feet were sideways, and she was just rolling and rolling. She’d come up and go back down.”
While the water at this location is not very deep, the current is strong.
“It was just constant pushing, pushing, trying to fight it. It was tough,” he said.
Delia picked up her video camera and recorded the moment when her husband risked his own life and jumped into the water to save the girl.
Sanchez moved toward the girl and observed her mother attempting to help her. “She grabbed a noodle, those floaty noodle things, jumped in,” Sanchez explained. “And someone started yelling, ‘Little girl’s drowning over there. Little girl’s drowning.'”
Unfortunately, the mother floated past the girl and was not able to help her. At the time, no park rangers were present to help, so Sanchez jumped into the water and pulled the girl free.
“Kind of hoping somebody would have done it if my child was drowning as well,” the Border Patrol agent expressed. “So, I don’t know. I just reacted. I just did it. I don’t know why. I just did it.”
After jumping into the turbulent water below the dam, Sanchez grabbed the girl and pushed off the river bottom, breaking free of the current, KSAT reported.
Local police officers explained this situation used to be a regular occurrence until the City put up warning buoys upstream. The markers are placed to warn people of the dangers of going over the top of the dam and re-direct them to the tube chute that attracts crowds of tubers.
New Braunfels police Lt. Jacob Pullen told the reporter, “Since those buoys got put in there, it’s a very rare occurrence now.”
While the Comal River is not a border river, Border Patrol agents are trained to assist people who place themselves in danger by illegally crossing various bodies of water. Breitbart Texas has repeatedly covered river rescues carried out by Border Patrol agents along the Rio Grande in Texas.
In December 2016, Breitbart Texas reported that agents assigned to the Rio Grande Valley Sector quickly responded to a life-threatening situation after human smugglers forced a raft to capsize, tossing seven children and four adults into the water. One of the children was listed as an infant, according to information obtained from Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Marlene Castro.
The human smuggler appeared to intentionally gun the engine on a raft to throw the illegal immigrants into the river — distracting agents so he could escape.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
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