DEL RIO—Reggie’s life has revolved around opportunity—seeking it all over America, and eventually creating it for himself, in response to the needs of his neighbors.
He’s back in Del Rio now—where he belongs, he says. He runs a medical transport company (staffed by licensed EMTS and paramedics), something many of the elderly South Texas depend upon to see specialists or get treatment in San Antonio, some 150 miles away or in San Angelo, just over 155 miles distant. The business venture allows him to remain in his beloved hometown. It also allows him to serve the community he grew up in.
But Del Rio was only home during parts of his childhood. His mother and father had emigrated from Acuña, Mexico. And like so many before them, were lured north by the promise of more jobs and higher wages.
“My parents tried to make a life in Chicago,” Reggie said. “My father was doing construction and doing quite well. But he saw lots of downsides to raising children there, or in any larger metro.”
The family returned to Del Rio, and Reggie returned to what seems like a typical rural childhood; bicycles and creeks and fishing and impossibly long summer days.
“My mother started working as a seamstress at Wrangler, and the summers were our own,” Reggie said.
He and his friends would often float down the creek on commandeered inner tubes.
After high school, Reggie began college at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He wasn’t ready for the cold.
“I had lived in Chicago, so I thought I knew cold,” he said. “I got to school at the beginning of October, and it was already 30 degrees. I was in a coat; everyone else was in shorts. They all said wait ‘til tomorrow. That’s when the snow started. And it stayed until May.”
But college didn’t agree with Reggie, he said. He went to work in demolition for a friend’s company, where he was making good money.
In 1998, though, Del Rio was hit by a massive flooding when Hurricane Charley stalled over the region, dumping 15 inches of rain in under 12 hours.
“I knew I had to go back and see if I could help,” Reggie said. It wouldn’t be the last time Reggie was drawn back to South Texas.
He soon had a job at the Alcoa plant, where his bilingual skills were needed. But when Alcoa moved much of its manufacturing to China, Reggie took an EMS class. He knew he had found his calling. He even advanced to paramedic.
“I hadn’t done well in college, but my ADHD issues are actually a plus in this field,” Reggie explained. “You’re able to have lots of things going on, all at the same time, and you can handle it. Lots of patients, lots of hazards. So much of the training is hands-on and real-world. It wasn’t just theoretical, and that fit my style of learning.”
Those emergency medical skills are very valuable, and at times, drew Reggie away from Del Rio. He was on the medical front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in California, and he worked in ERs in San Antonio.
Yet Del Rio was home. When an EMS colleague wanted to open a medical transport service, Reggie was in—though he intended to only be involved part-time.
“Part-time didn’t work out,” Reggie admitted. “Running a business isn’t what I thought it would be. I came on full-time as a paramedic, janitor, administrator, PR, HR and everything else.”
And it’s worth all of the sacrifice, he says, to be able to be at home in Del Rio for his family—and for his mental health.
“I’ve lived in Chicago, Charlotte and Chattanooga,” he said. “I went through the George Floyd riots, the Summer of Love, and all of that. It’s hard; you lose so much control when you move to the metro areas.”
South Texas is home, and his patients are his friends and neighbors. The medical needs in rural Texas are great, but so is the opportunity.
“That’s the thing about opportunity,” Reggie said. “You can always make your own.”