The Faces of Las Cruces
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Last spring, 14 multicultural students and young professionals worked with Associated Press staffers at a Diverse Visions Photojournalism workshop. They spent three days in Las Cruces, N.M.
They encountered Tony, a 29-year-old alcoholic who had planned to drive his car off the Organ Mountains, then thought better of it. So he sits on a cot, head in hands, enveloped by the smells of sweat and liquor.
“Do you want to die, sir, or do you want us to help you?” askeds nurse Avis Beich of Memorial Medical Center.
Tony begins to sob. “I’m just a waste,” he says. “Just a waste of a life. I’m nothing.”
Beich gets him a bed in the psychiatric unit, where he is put in a safe room, at right.
“He tried to kill himself, but didn’t,” she says, “Coming here is a cry for help. And someone like that, you want to help.”
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