Always on the Job

Trapped inside a locked automobile, the sweat-drenched infant stopped crying and went limp. The outside temperature in San Antonio was 101 degrees, but inside the car it was nearing 150.

Trapped inside a locked automobile, the sweat-drenched infant stopped crying and went limp. The outside temperature in San Antonio was 101 degrees, but inside the car it was nearing 150.

When the baby’s panicked mother, Arazelli Valdez, telephoned police, she was told to wait for a locksmith, but no one came. As Valdez and her mother, Yolanda, stood by the car weeping and screaming for help, Edward Gonzales, an off-duty police officer, emerged from a nearby store.

Seeing 3-month-old Kayleen wilted, with her head down, Gonzales tried to break into the car. When that didn’t work, he hammered a baseball-sized rock against the shatterproof window until a web-like fissure appeared in the pane.

Beating away doggedly even after cutting his hand, Gonzales finally reached the infant. When he grabbed her from the sweltering automobile, Kayleen had been in the car 45 minutes and was unconscious.

To prevent the baby from going into shock, Gonzales, 39, of Canyon Lake (pop. 16,870), rubbed Kayleen’s tiny limbs, removed everything but her diaper, covered her with wet towels and placed her under a ceiling fan in a nearby beauty shop. In a few minutes, she began to cry. The crisis was over for a mother and grandmother.

“Edward deserves a medal,” says San Antonio resident Yolanda Valdez, 56, of the 2002 incident. “He obviously is 100 percent a public servant—and a hero! I thank God he was there when no one else knew what to do.”

Reluctant hero

Gonzales doesn’t see himself as a hero, even though since 1983 he has saved 11 lives—and each time he was off duty.

When Yolanda Valdez heard that startling statistic, she wrote a letter praising Gonzales to the police chief at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, where Gonzales worked until recently joining the University of Texas Health Science Center’s police department. Upon receiving the letter, Our Lady of the Lake Police Chief Rosemary Bratten presented Gonzales with a plaque honoring “his lifelong commitment to saving lives and going beyond the call of duty.”

She added, “All police officers go out of their way to help people, but when the results are so outstanding—so many times—you start to look beyond the coincidental and at the man himself.” Gonzales’ view of his heroism is simple: “Human beings need to take care of each other,” he says humbly. “I know it seems that this happens a lot, but I think I’m just more observant than other people . . . and willing to help.”

Gonzales remembers his father, a police officer in Corpus Christi, frequently stopping to help stranded motorists, even though he was off duty or in another part of the state. The senior Gonzales’ philosophy: “Always help people. You might not be a doctor, but you can always do something.” Admittedly, Edward grew up wanting to be like his father, and he’s tried to live the same way.

Of the 11 people Gonzales has saved, three were drowning, three were choking, two had heart attacks, one was trapped in a burning house and one was attempting suicide. Another, closer to home, was his infant son’s near crib death. Of those he rescued, four were infants and three were senior citizens.

Anybody can do it

The first time Gonzales found himself in a life-saving situation he was 16. He noticed a woman running up and down the beach at South Padre Island on the Gulf Coast. Upon learning that the woman’s son was missing in the water, Gonzales and his surfer friends took their surfboards into the waves and began to search.

“Suddenly the submerged boy brushed up against my leg,” Gonzales recalls of the incident. “I pulled him on my surfboard and took him ashore. Fortunately, I’d just been certified in Advanced Water Safety for a lifeguard job, so I was able to clear the boy’s airways and resuscitate him.” Gonzales saved his own son’s life in 1998. At the time, he and his wife, Norma, didn’t know that 2-week-old Alex was lactose intolerant. One night, the baby spit up some milk while asleep; it curdled and blocked his airways.

“When Edward didn’t hear Alex breathing in the middle of the night, he literally jumped over me to get to the baby’s crib,” Norma remembers. “By the time he reached Alex, he was wide-eyed and turning blue—and I was hysterical. He removed me from the room because I was a distraction. Then he continued doing what he was doing.”

Undoubtedly, there will be more lives to save.
“It’s not something that I’m looking forward to doing,” Gonzales says, “but something I’m more than willing to do. It doesn’t take a superhero to do this—anybody can do it.

“The most important thing is not to lose control of the situation in your head,” he adds. “If you’re not prepared for it, then you’re going to be in trouble. If you stay in focus, you’ll be some good to somebody.”

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