On Monday of last week we told you the story of Edgar Sanchez who jumped from the 50-foot high La Immaculada church steeple 43 years ago and lived to tell the tale. The centerpiece of the story was the rare, never before seen missionary's footage of the jump, along with timeless photographs by Fernando Sosa. For us it was just a fascinating story of a historic event, but for those who were there when it happened, seeing that footage was a dramatic, "cold-seed" inducing remembrance of the event. We spoke to one man who told us, seeing it all over again was like entering a time warp.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
A week ago when Filimon Cuellar looked at our story about Edgar Tasiano Sanchez’s leap of faith from the La Immaculada Church 4 decades ago, he says he was stunned by what he saw. His entire body was overtaken by “cold seed” and his memory was jogged back 43 years into the past to Orange Walk town. Looking at it again he could not hold back a tear as the memories of that day, those church grounds, rolled in like a storm, turning him into a young man again.
Filimon Cuellar,
“When I saw it really affected me because I could remember these things.”
Alfonso Noble,
You caught cold seed?
Filimon Cuellar,
“Yes. The young lady in the picture Ms. Burns used to work with me. I mean these are the people I can remember.”
“It was the not the talk in town it only runs for a while. So the younger generation doesn’t know about it.”
“So when I saw this I was a pretty young chap 18 or 19 year old and I mean few people could tell you about these things now. The lady who could tell you about this thing, Ms. Zenora Mex who doesn’t have a leg now lives in New York City. There is a clinic in Orange Walk in San Jose village named after her which shows you this lady was so good. But this really gives you a history of what really happened.”
“Boy I recall back many years ago when I was a young chap working at the medical department in Orange Walk Hospital as a messenger and ambulance driver. I was standing on the verandah of the old hospital and we were watching across from the police station. We came back from the police station and went to the courthouse and saw Mr. Hugh Fuller. We spoke to Mr. Hugh Fuller who was the magistrate and went back. Going back to the station the police came out with the gun and he ran across the street where the doctor lived but they had just knocked down the fence. So Sergeant Simpliss was close to him, maybe 50 feet nothing more than that, and he fell in a hole when Edgar caught him.”
Alfonso Noble,
He swiped at him?
Filimon Cuellar,
“Yes he could have caught him at the neck. I saw that, witnessed it.”
Alfonso Noble,
So why did he attack him with the machete?
Filimon Cuellar,
“Because he was coming with the gun. But it was not him, it was the other police but when he dropped in the hole he put up his hands and Edgar caught him on the finger. If you see him today you see his finger is still stiff.”
The chronology of events that followed match Edgar's description of it all the way to the church where Cuellar says the town had gathered for the spectacle of Sanchez at the church steeple
Filimon Cuellar,
“The crowd of people who were at the church. He stood with his hands out and he actually rang the bell saying ‘what do you want to do with my body…are you going to eat it?’ I was so frightened I was shaking and then he jumped and when he dropped on the ground it shook. And those guys I remember, a corporal and a guy named Henry Smith married to a girl from Orange Walk, and they took him to the hospital. I ran back to the hospital and when he was in the hospital he was not normal. Most people were nervous and excited because they could not believe it.”:
Alfonso Noble,
Could you believe it?
Filimon Cuellar,
“I could never believe it. That man was an athlete he played football very good. He was a fire fighter with me in Orange Walk. He was a nice guy.”
Alfonso Noble,
How long was he up there?
Filimon Cuellar,
“Not even 10 minutes. When the crowd got there is when he left the police station running to the back street which they call Queen Victoria Avenue now. That's when got excited and started to wonder what was going on. Everybody was frightened they couldn’t believe it. Nobody approached him and they only shot at him and tried to kill him as if he was a dog.”
Alfonso Noble,
They shot him?
Filimon Cuellar,
“They shot him. They fired two shots at the man but only one caught him.”
“I mean I never thought a young guy would try something like this.”
He couldn't and neither could he believe what he would witness hours later after Sanchez was taken to the hospital.
Filimon Cuellar,
“But when he got over he started to give trouble. We put the cloth and he tore it from off of his hands and feet. We put four handcuffs, one on each leg and his hand, and he still didn’t stay one place. The bed was shaking from one place to the other so we had to isolate the male ward. The next morning when I went back to work and the doctor and the nurses had interviewed him and the told the doctor he had smoked weed but he had smoked a big one and he did what his God told him to do.”
“I mean we handcuffed the man with four handcuffs and still he wasn’t staying still. You had to sedate the man to get him to sleep. The doctors said they couldn’t control him and he was strong.”
And being a witness to Sanchez’s fall he is surprised that he lived.
Filimon Cuellar,
“When he dropped the ground shook young man. The ground actually shook like it was earthquake and he didn’t die. I admire him for that. I respect him for that. I didn’t anyone would’ve lived. I don’t know how he lived. And I speak to him all the time he is my personal friend but I was scared. I didn’t trust the guy.”
Alfonso Noble,
Why didn’t you trust him?
Filimon Cuellar,
“Because he did what to me is impossible. I mean how can you jump off something that high and not die and nothing much happen to you. Young man try live that like how I lived it. Imagine seeing that in real life. I remember the words ‘what do you want to do with my body…are you going to eat it?’ A normal person wouldn’t tell you that. These pictures take me back to that day and let me remember the past.”
The past captured on film and in pictures to give at least one man his youth back, if only for a few moments.
And while he counts that as being among the most chilling things he's seen in a very colorful life, Cuellar says it was nothing compared to the devastation that he saw first hand when he came to Belize to clean up after hurricane Hattie as a volunteer.