London Bridges - once upon a time not too long ago they were a popular political catchphrase - with political parties swearing to put an end to them. But there's no quick fix; it's a costly process of community building and while many London Bridges have been cast away, there are quite a few still around. And it is in that stew of crushing poverty that a man lost his life very early this morning, and as we found out, the fact that he was drunk only complicated matters. Here's the story.
Jules Vasquez, Reporting
This morning at 7:30 police stood on one branch of a labyrinthine expanse of London Bridges overlooking the area of swamp where 40 year old Emilio Antonio Orrellano lay dead. They were trying to figure how to get him out. Eventually area residents and relatives had to step into the swamp and clamber under the London bridge for a precarious journey down the teetering cascade of palettes that form this half mile long network of bridges. Orellano lived in this pink plywood house 30 feet away from where he was found. His common law wife of ten years Carmita Tasher looked on as he was extracted from the tangle of swamp and electrical wires. She says that he came home last night drunk and went to connect the electricity - which meant dealing with live wires in a swamp in the dark.
Carmita Tasher, Wife of deceased
"Well he came in 12 O' clock last night, right? He came drunk and saw the house in darkness, so he says, 'What happen babe?' I told him we don't have electricity. He start to curse bad words, he says, 'How come we don't have electricity?' So he got his nipper and he went through the door, I ask him where he was going, he says that he was going to fix the electricity."
Jules Vasquez
"He got what?"
Carmita Tasher
"His nipper, a tool like a pliers. I told him, 'Babe don't go and mess with that electricity, leave it until morning.' So he told me not to tell him anything, So he went, I saw him go in the bushes towards the electricity wires."
He went out into the swamp and tried to connect two wires. The wet conditions, his drunken-ness and the live electricity were a deadly combination and he was electrocuted. But no one knew. At night this area is pitch dark and most residents were asleep - including his wife. A neighbor found him this morning.
Carmita Tasher
"He saw something in the bush, he went closer and he said that it was Mendoza, he told me that my husband is dead. I didn't know what to say. Whenever he is drunk I can't tell him anything. I feel like he got electrocuted and fell backwards and that was it. He must have been really drunk that he couldn't help himself out of the swamp."
Today as police juggled a stretcher along this ramshackle London Bridge, it brought the real tragedy of this man's death into sharp focus. The poverty here is absolute, there is no running water except for that provided from this hose, which runs from the standpipe at the road's edge over three hundred feet into the neighborhood; there is no electrical network or lamp-posts - except this one at the road's edge, which feeds into a tangled maze of stolen or sub-letted electricity. It is an accident - or a series of accidents - waiting to happen:
Jules Vasquez
"How do you usually get electricity back here?"
Carmita Tasher
"Well we get from that black house over there."
Jules Vasquez
"How come you never had electricity last night?"
Carmita Tasher
"Sometime the wire gets untangle, sometime dogs get in the wire, get electrocuted and a lot other different things. But it doesn't bother me, I just light a candle and I try monitor things and when I feel like I am falling asleep I out the candle."
These calamitous circumstances are played out in all these houses, about 20 of them in this un-serviced area - where people still find a way to get by, but certainly not in dignified circumstances or even a modicum of safety as they are surrounded by swamp and hemmed in by garbage.
A small correction to the story, Tasher told us she estimated that Orrellano was 40; he was actually 42.
Emilio Antonio "Mendoza" Orrellano and Tasher had been living in the area for two and a half years. They share one child who was at home at the time. No post mortem has been conducted and so at this time, no cause of death has been confirmed. BEL said it could not comment until it received an official report. We called Area Representative Patrick Faber for comment but he was busy in meetings and has promised to speak to us tomorrow.
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