HARLINGEN — Volunteer La Feria fireman Reynaldo Lopez was driving his family home from the hospital, being a good dad.
Then he decided to be a hero.
Lopez, 27, had his wife in the car. She had just undergone surgery, and their son was asleep in the back seat.
As he was heading north toward the Arroyo Colorado bridge on Ed Carey Drive and 25th Street, he noticed a small Volkswagen Beetle slowing down.
It was approaching the bridge when Lopez saw the driver with her head down. That’s when the car hit the side of the bridge.
“It wasn’t a hard impact,” Lopez said. “The car was going slow and I was able to park my car in front of it.”
The accident happened two weeks ago on March 10, in the afternoon.
Lopez said he pulled his car in front of the Volkswagen and another car stopped behind it to stop traffic.
Lopez said he opened the door, put the car in park, turned it off, and asked if the driver was OK.
Lopez recently was recognized at the La Feria city meeting for his heroic effort to go above and beyond the call of duty.
The driver of the Beetle was La Feria resident, Morgan Hoff, 17, who was also coming from a doctor’s appointment.
“I’m very grateful that’s for sure,” Hoff said. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Hoff said she was on her way to leave the doctor’s excuse at her job when her vision began to blur.
She said all she could remember was the man who had saved her was wearing a superhero T-shirt.
“It was pretty scary the next thing I remember was I was being pulled out of the car,” Hoff said.
