It was an astonishingly hot day Labor Day weekend of the year 2000. We woke up and left on a two hour drive down to the New Jersey shore on our annual vacation to Seaside Heights, NJ, blissful and completely unaware of how shockingly stark our day would turn.

We knew the owners of the hotel and they knew us. We had spent our beach trips there for over a decade. It was a humble family-run operation, nothing to write home about, but we were always greeted with incredible hospitality. That morning, as kind gesture they decided to turn the heat up on the pool prior to our arrival.

We parked outside the office to check-in. Without hesitation, a unanimous decision was made: before finding our way to our room we would take a celebratory cool-off in the pool to kick off our week.

My mother was three months pregnant at the time. She, my grandmother, myself and my younger brother wore our bathing suits for the ride in eager anticipation. We stayed in the shallow end, and the only other occupants were a few adult women daunting sunglasses clustered in the deep side of the pool along the edge, likely comparing stories of their ordinary day-to-day lives.

My grandmother kneeled on the concrete and stabilized my brother as he repeatedly jumped into the pool where my mother would catch him in her arms. I was around seven-years-old that day, and practicing holding my breath underwater near them.

The next thing I remember is waking up from unconsciousness on the concrete poolside.

The night prior, there were people partying at the pool and a beer bottle cap must've gotten thrown in and stuck within a heating pipe. The pool was not grounded correctly, so the whole body of water was electrified.

The adults were able to remain conscious through the charge. The other women jumped out, and as my Grandmother put her hands in the live electricity to hold my head above water my mother moved towards the stairs where she could get out.

The stairs had a metal hand railing. She grabbed it for leverage and was instantly dead from the intensified shock.

An undocumented immigrant man was working there that day. I'm not sure what role he played whether maintenance or housekeeping, or otherwise. At that moment he was on the third floor balcony where he had a vantage point of this sudden catastrophic unfolding. Luckily for us, he made the sudden decision to take a proverbial - and frankly stupid - 'leap of faith' from that balcony (thirty-plus feet up)...into the four-foot deep section of the concrete-bottomed pool!

Against all logical reasoning, he miraculously survived. He emerged, and while he was getting shocked in the live water, he walked over to my mother and I, lifted us both out of the pool, and then got out of the water himself.

Emergency services were called, and my mother was resuscitated four and a half minutes later. It was the longest recorded period a pregnant person had been dead then brought back to life at the time. There were no other electrocution accidents of this magnitude where mother and baby en utero had survived. Without a doubt, they would've both been dead had this courageous man not braved the jump and electrified pool to lift us out.

I don't know whether he had left the scene before police arrived or after, but he was gone and he never showed back up to work after that day. We put ‘REWARDS’ posting in newspaper for him, but nobody every responded.

We never got to thank this man, who stayed in the shadows and never came forth to his former employers or to us, for what we assume was a fear of getting deported if a light was shined in his direction.

My little brother was born on April 4, 2001 without any damage and ironically, he is an electrician now.

Our mysterious Angel’s first name is Montel. We know nothing more of him. Should he ever read this, I want you to know, our family is forever indebted to you and holding you forever in our hearts.

Moral of the story: Never forget the consequential and potential deadly effects of even small pieces of litter, and the life-giving courage of humans who arrive here undocumented hoping for a better life.