“ We would hear a bombing in the distance and look up into the sky as we saw the helicopter arriving. The machine could have the inscription of the Army or the Police. We wondered which one it was. We knew a man was down. ”.
By Cristian Gasca and Óscar Durán.
Néider Parra Contreras arrived in San Andrés de Tumaco in 2019. The municipality of Nariño is located in the low western end of the national relief. In the vicinity of Cabo Manglares. In the same place, the squadron of the Antinarcotics Directorate, of which Néider was a member, prepared their stay for the mission that had been entrusted to them. They slept in the popular rangerazos, modest improvised beds. They waited for the moment.
Less than three months ago, in December 2018, the local insurgency, belonging to the FARC dissidents, had suffered the loss of alias Guacho, the main leader of that division and unanimous manager of the illegal merchant transits that provided sustenance to the fighters.
An important joint operation between both divisions of the security forces was to take place. They were responsible for detecting and eradicating illicit crops in minefields. Néider’s memoirs clarify the odyssey. In an improper name. Each of the abrupt detonations that were frequently noticed signaled, before everyone, the exact location of an antipersonnel mine installed in staunch defense of the valuable plantations and, with it, the tragic fate of the servant who would have agreed, involuntarily, to set it off. As a sequential act, it occurred in the course of the most unexpected events. It was then that the rescue aircraft arrived.
The latter’s daily sustenance, as well as that of their weapons and war machinery, depended, fundamentally, on drug trafficking. That is why public instability in the area was even more attenuated when Luis Alfredo Pai Jimenez, the real name of the eminent guerrilla leader, was killed by the National Army during Operation David, a military mission that was later broadcast as a success.
La sujeción diaria de estos últimos, así como la de su armamento y maquinaria de guerra dependían, fundamentalmente, del narcotráfico. Es por eso que la inestabilidad pública de la zona fue aun mayormente atenuada cuando Luis Alfredo Pai Jiménez, verdadero nombre del eminente líder guerrillero, resultó abatido por el Ejército Nacional durante la Operación David, cometido militar difundido posteriormente en calidad de misión exitosa.
The tensions resulting from the casualty opened the way to all kinds of hostilities. In the lake that served as a source of drinking water for Néider and his companions, animal carcasses began to be seen floating on the surface. The stream had been poisoned. At the same time, there were vividly recognizable sounds of human activity in the immediate vicinity of the police base. Insurgent appearance. Security protocols were intensified, giving way to careful territorial inspections in the early hours of the morning. In the trade, these reconnaissance exercises are known as advanced. They provide a constant geographical view of the adversary and his movements.
It was necessary to continue with the main work, even in the heat of the bellicose environment that surrounded it. On the morning of February 26 of that first day of 2019, Néider joined the eight hectares of crops to be eradicated, as required by the Police Directorate. He was accompanied by Tamy, the detector dog assigned to him. He was a canine guide. While walking around the first crop located, Néider noticed a light pole installed there. The apparently jungle-like nature of the area strongly attracted his attention. He continued with the task of subverting the crop without any news.
It was then that the squadron identified another crop. This was where the tragedy would take place. It was located next to a desolate hamlet, very close to Néider’s position. Once he arrived with the purpose of advancing the dismantling, he began to experience, faintly but exponentially increasing, a shocking sensation typical of bad hunches. The peak came when there were about twenty meters left to complete the section of that plantation. Anxieties are amplified when the body approaches the end of the reason that causes them. It is a paradoxical effect. What happened took place in that singular final interval. The last one.
“I felt a loud bang on my head. It lifted me up and I fell. As I fell, I heard a ringing in my ears. My mouth was full of dirt, both explosives and gunpowder. I saw Tamy, who was looking around; she was in a daze. As I watched her, an exchange of gunfire began”, recalls Néider .
He was living, in the truce of a few seconds, a reality that did not grant possible assimilation in the same temporal portion. When his mental incorporation overcame, as fast as it was naturally possible, his first and innate reaction was to support his companions in the setback of the sudden crossfire. However, it was impossible for him to reach for his gun to pull the trigger. His weakened, bloodied hands had lost gripping strength.
A nurse arrived at Néider’s position in complicity of the greatest effort. He was giving him first aid. “Calm down, everything is all right”, he told him immediately; at the same time Néider could see that a large part of his right leg was missing. It had been pulverized from the sole to the knee. Because of the uncertainty caused by the more than probable insertion of more mines and their threatening unknown location, it was difficult to make mobility decisions. Paradoxically, the exact location of the situation later became a strategic security point, because the truth is that, once the explosive device immersed in the clay was triggered, the possibility that there was another one of these in the same area was ruled out.
Unfortunately, there were instaurations just a few meters away. They detonated immediately. The second one hit six members of the squad. They fell. While they were being treated, a third explosion hit another four men. A total of eleven were affected, along with Néider. Two of them died from serious injuries caused by burns and multiple fractures resulting from the shock wave.
The chaotic onslaught of the maelstrom then gave way to the arrival of a nearby police squad. Their original location was no more than five kilometers from the scene. Although the incidents of the confrontation that then took place were of limited witnessing to Néider because of the state that now concerned him, it was equally unmistakable to him what was happening there. He noticed that he and his companions were in a prepared camp. This implied not only the already noticed presence of anti-personnel mines planted in the subsoil, but also the additional functionality of some of these to be activated remotely. Not only would they be triggered upon detecting movement on their structure; they could also be executed from a distance. It meant that, before the first detonation, the insurgents were already watching them.
The immediate request for air support became evident. Such support arrived; however, the aircraft would not land because of the fearful possibility that it would be blown up. It was still a minefield, even with many of its galleries revealed. Landing the vehicle on solid ground was a risk of such great magnitude that it was simply unaffordable. Even in that more than adverse situation, Néider managed to arrive to receive the transfer that his physical condition required. He recalls the excruciating pain when, at rest, his companions pressed his wounds to prevent deliberate blood loss and replaced his tourniquets with new ones. The sensation is unforgettable. The pinnacle of his experience.
He was taken to a nearby health care center in the Tumaco urbanization. Due to the seriousness of the outrage, Néider and the other men killed were to be removed from there once they reached a certain stability to be fully treated, once the superficial affections of the emergency assistance had healed.
The march involved the erection of a security cordon around the medical center. An extensive congregation of civilians invaded the place in invective of the fallen. The undeserved offenses were presumably caused by the opinion that those people took as valid: they agreed that the policemen should not have been there. It can be foreseen that such a reaction was typical of the sighting of a sudden threat to the safety of its issuers. Plain and banal judgments. Almost comparable to a collective symptom of Stockholm disease.
Néider regained consciousness two weeks later. The unfortunate attack had become his last memory of the now immemorial Tuesday. He woke up at the Imbanaco Clinic in the city of Cali. This was the most suitable facility. He was intubated and, for a while, it was not possible for him to utter a word. The first question the medical staff asked him, when he had just recovered his speech, was about his identity. They asked him who he was and approached him with other reality tests to certify the orientation of his judgment after the event. Subsequently, they informed him of his diagnosis.
“You lost your two lower extremities at different levels. We had to amputate them higher than normal as a result of the necrosis we received your body with. It meant that your tissues were already dead. It was either that or his life,” the doctor told him. A gloomy pectoral frost invaded Néider. The disbelief and its related impact. He would remain so while the specialist enumerated the other mishaps suffered by the policeman in the performance of his duties. He also informed him of the loss of two of the fingers of his right hand, of the presence of third degree burns on his buttocks, his back and his left hand and of the death of almost the totality of his chin.
The pertinent thing was reconstruction surgery. Each event became the pinnacle of Néider’s chronic lamentation of reality. He struggled to assimilate seeing himself now wearing absorbent pads as part of his support, being fed through his nose and witnessing at all times the image of his abdominal contour held in place by the plaster cast that covered the remaining regions of his legs.
Such remnant rawness would also manifest itself in his mind. A deep sense of guilt assailed him as he looked at the photographs of his deceased comrades. Of those who had failed to survive the attack. Another of them, who was with him, comforted him. A consolation is more comforting when it obeys the truth. So it was. He reminded Néider that he had fallen before the others. That he never backed down. He did everything in his power. It was his duty, and now he considered it done.
He would also receive the valuable visit of his close relatives. His parents and sister arrived in Cali after requesting, all of them, a lawful and pertinent consent in their workplaces. These were moments in which Néider’s mood was encouraged by details that, in external perspective, might seem minimal. Eating and tasting drinks normally again “was the glory” for him. So it was also with the daily upheavals of personal hygiene. When he received assistance in cutting the prominent hair that grew out of his extensive hospitalization, he experienced enormous relief. Moments to treasure.
He then moved to Bogota, his hometown. There he was reunited with the rest of his loved ones. He would see again his beloved Tamy, who, immediately, did not hesitate to pounce with great exaltation on his companion. The disdain was mutual when the creature was not allowed too much proximity because of Néider’s physical condition, with his hands still in plaster and multiple remnants of wounds in dire need of being fully protected. However, the joy they both felt at being together again transcended the barriers of the limited physical contact that was unavoidably imposed on them.
When Néider was discharged from the hospital, he was confronted with a new reality that had not yet taken a continuous place in what he thought to be true. He was transported in a wheelchair, often questioning the totality of what had happened, as well as the transcendence of the stage that was about to begin. He would begin to attend several physiotherapy sessions that would cement a fundamental axis of his recovery process. The moments of greatest shock would rest in the attempts to perform actions that, in other circumstances, would not represent significant efforts. Performing phalangeal stretches, picking up everyday objects or writing manually were some of these actions.
The daily chink he now lived with was something he had never faced before in his twenty-six years of life. He had been born and raised in the capital. His childhood was marked by the quiet daily routine of a day to day life smoothed by the customs of the beginning of the century. In his home there was also the effect of the discipline and rigor taught by his father, who also urged Néider to join the ranks of the National Army. The first subjections were given when the young pupil of the family was in the last stages of his high school education. He would show a certain reluctance for the idea, but he would adopt it later with the incentive of entering, in the first instance, the police career.
Simultaneously, he advanced technical studies in business management. However, these were interrupted due to the recent process of incorporation into the Police. Contrary to what usually happens on more than one occasion within the institution according to their requirements, Néider’s was a quick and affordable process that led him to promptly adopt a total focus on the path of service; as if it were an innate vocation. Around 2016, he was already taking the patrol course at the National School of Carabineros in Facatativá.
It was a formidable challenge for him. Each and every aspect of his life was changing: his now reduced family closeness, almost no access to technology and his renewed physical status stood out. In a way, he was preparing himself for what was to come, even though he himself was not aware of it. It is a fact that training, both bodily and psychic, lessens the lags of any setback. His is undoubtedly the ultimate proof.
Upon graduating with honors, Néider was then assigned to the Antinarcotics Directorate. He took the course of canine guidance where he met Tamy and began to operate. Some time passed until that February 2019. In police jargon, one of these events is known as a novelty. To date, Néider has not left the Directorate, he has been in the division for six years. He is currently part of the human talent management of the same, in natural detriment of his former functions because of the disability.
You can safely say that you have coped exceptionally well with the contingency, even though you were not prepared for it to happen. It is practically impossible for that to be the case. His predisposition to move forward was quickly rewarded in a positive way. In one of the ceremonial acts of the decorations for his service, Néider met a man who was interested in his story, quickly struck up a conversation and took the liberty of asking for his telephone number. At the time, Néider did not know who he was, but easily noticed his foreign accent. When he learned his identity, he was inevitably surprised. It was the director of the DEA. He called him a month later.
“Do you have a passport? If not, go get it, get it out right away. We have a trip planned for your prosthesis,” said the man. The exaltation was not an impediment for Néider to give way to the request immediately. He carried out the formalities corresponding to his travel document, as well as the visa requirement. The process is infamously popular, but its benefits are positively equivalent.
Now he traveled to Los Angeles and, thanks to the technological access to first-rate alternatives that American services provide, he was able to get back on his feet within a few days. He was provided with orthopedic prostheses for his legs. If it is indescribable from the outside perspective, from his own it must have seemed like a fantasy. A product of noble merit.
His return to Colombia gave rise to a new period of adaptation. The extension of the substitutions was a fair measure to adopt a certain margin of mobility. Enough so that Néider could enjoy activities and occupations that for some fateful time would have been considered impossible. It was then that he took up handbike, adapted cycling, and swimming. Training became an important pillar of his evolution. He had the opportunity to represent the National Police in the Invictus Games held in Germany. This is a sporting event of adapted specialties that has wide international recognition. Néider won two medals. One more milestone.
Along with the simultaneity of his numerous projects, there is also the culmination of his new professional studies. Néider began his psychology studies at the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios. Now he is in the final stage of his studies, which will lead to the development of his internship. His main incentive to adopt the approach was the psychotherapeutic sessions he received upon his return to Bogota. Appreciating firsthand the expert work of assimilating and treating the pain of others led him to generate some intrigue about how such a task was possible for someone who had not experienced what his patient had. He found it hard to understand and believe that someone without physical ravages comparable to his own would claim to understand his pain. The roots of empathy.
The professional training that he is about to complete will undoubtedly have helped him to deepen the perspective that afflicted him at the time. The ravages of what happened in Tumaco fade with the passing of the nights. What now calls Néider’s attention is to take a well-deserved rest at the end of his educational cycle. It has been exhausting for him to study, work and train at the same time, naturally. The rest is ideal. He has the peace of mind and pride of having made his inexorable resurgence a reality and, with it, an enormous relief, not only his own, but also that of those he cares about.
Not even the tremendous success of recovery that this entails will be enough to stop him. He is determined to continue with firmness the course of a life project that, even without having planned it in its totality, or at least in a minimum portion of it, means for him everything that gives meaning to his future. He dedicates himself to what he excels at. To what makes him happy.
There is no remorse that can match such fortune. More than a case of overcoming, Néider’s is a manual on how to make such a challenge a reality, the ultimate proof that the death of perseverance can be safeguarded even in the face of the cruelest ravages of the unpredictable future.
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