Right Place, Right Time Right Person
As a biomedical technician at Baylor Scott & White Medical
Center – McKinney, Hector Gonzalez knows when something
needs fixing. So while in San Francisco for a training class, he
decided to act when confronted with a problem that needed
fixing, even though most people probably would have simply
walked away.
Hector was heading back to his hotel after a run, when an older
woman flagged him down.
“The first thing she asked was did I know who ‘they’ were,” he
recalls. “She was very worried people were after her and were
going to kill her.” At first, Hector believed what she was saying.
“Then I realized something was off, but I kept talking, telling
her it was OK, even though I had a hard time figuring out what
to do.”
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He probed, asking if he should contact the police or her family.
That agitated her, and when she asked if he had anything to
help her end her life, Hector decided to act. “I told her, ‘No, I
don’t.’ And when she told me she was going to jump off a
bridge, I called 911. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d not
done something to get help.”
Because he didn’t know the area, he had a hard time directing
police. As he looked for street signs, he continued to follow the
woman, hanging back so as not to agitate her.
The police were able to track Hector’s cell phone and located
him and the woman, who by this time had walked to an
overpass. Hector stayed back so the officers could approach her.
Then she calmly got in their squad car, and they drove off.
When he got home, the father of four shared the story with his
family. “They need to know that doing something as simple as
telling someone, ‘It’ll be OK’– especially a stranger – can go a
long way.”