Posted on 02/17/2004 4:22:01 PM PST by 4.1O dana super trac pak
In the aftermath of U.S. Border Patrol Agent James Epling's death, the patrol has begun looking at ways to improve agent safety, family members and patrol officials said.
First, Yuma agents have been conducting a search for technology that will help find missing agents. Second, the water survival course taught at the Border Patrol academy will be adjusted to mention Epling's death and better educate trainees about the dangers of water.
Michael Nicely, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego sector, said the technology to track agents in the field is there and he believes it will be implemented in the near future.
After falling into the Colorado River while chasing a group of suspected illegal immigrants, Epling was missing for three days while rescue crews scoured the river. An autopsy determined he had drowned.
Nicely, who was the chief of the Yuma sector when Epling died, said he would like to see agents be given a small, waterproof device that would let out a radio signal periodically.
It would be battery operated and allow dispatchers to know the agent's location at all times. Such a device would help search teams in the event that an agent is lost and increase the probability that the agent is alive, Nicley said.
Nicley said Border Patrol officials in Washington, D.C. are supportive of the technology.
"When you're looking for somebody in a dynamic environment where the risk is high, we need to be able to find him quickly," he said. Even if that locator went off only a couple of times in an hour it would certainly help us."
Also being looked at is the water survival course trainees are taught at the academy. Agents have said they are given several hours of instruction where they are taught how to stay afloat.
But in the wake of Epling's drowning, instructors plan to revisit the training, said Monica Epling, the fallen agent's wife.
She said agents that helped find her husband told her they were scheduled to be instructors at the academy and promised her changes would be made.
"They want to prevent this from happening again," she said.
Nicley said additional education is needed and he supports any measures taken toward improving agent safety in the field. He also said Border Patrol officials are meeting with other federal agencies to see if there is anything that can be done to make the river safer, but said it was too early to say what is being discussed.
"Those agents are going to do what they think they have to do to save lives," he said. "But what we can do is educate them more about the dangers."
The least this article could do is note that the agent fell after saving a Chinese women from drowning.
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