Executive Director Celia Diaz rarely gets to meet the people she helps rescue. Always working in the background, she tirelessly calls the right people when an emergency occurs. After a person is successfully transported and safe in a U.S. hospital, BEMCC usually never hears from them because the patient does not even know Celia helped them. Often Celia calls and coordinates the transports and makes sure the patient receives the proper medical care. The patient and family only know which air or ground ambulance helped them, or which hospital they were delivered to. They do not realize that BEMCC was the essential first contact that coordinated the entire transport! On September 28th, 2009 the L.A.P.D. contacted Celia and wanted to thank her for her life saving effort for one of their own.

The accommodation given to Celia by the Los Angeles Police Department reads :

On June 16, 2009, L.A.P.D. Sergeant Emada Castillo was involved in a life threatening accident in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Due to the severity of her injuries, time was of the essence and appropriate medical care in the United States was urgently needed.

Sergeant Castillo's safe and expeditious return to the United States was in fact facilitated due in large part to your tremendous contributions and those of several of your law inforcment and public agency partners.

We would like to personally thank you for your commitment, dedication, contributions and partnership in ensuring Sergeant Emada's safe return. Without your very timely and immediate actions, contacts and resources, her rescue may not have been possible. You exemplified the true spirit of camaraderie, partnership and .to protect and serve.. We are eternally grateful.

On behalf of Sergeant Castillo, her family and the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department, thank you for making it possible for her to return safely to both her immediate and law enforcement families.


Police Chief Wliiam J. Bratton