The Public Safety Commission on Tuesday presented life‑saving awards and citations to multiple Department of Public Safety employees for actions that saved lives, and a trooper described a smuggling incident that later produced a conviction and lengthy sentence.

During the awards segment, the commission recognized troopers and corporals for responses ranging from vehicle rescues to medical interventions. The director read narratives describing incidents in which officers entered burning vehicles, freed trapped crash victims and provided emergency medical care.

Corporal Justin Durr of the Texas Highway Patrol presented a detailed account of a 34‑mile pursuit and a subsequent crash in October 2022 that required officers to break vehicle windows, remove deployed airbags and swim into cold water to extract occupants. “We rescued the individuals 1 by 1,” Durr said of the five occupants—three males and two females—who were removed to the riverbank and given care. Durr said the joint response included Kinney County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Border Patrol and Junction Police Department.

Durr recounted follow‑up criminal action: driver Ruben Sandoval was indicted, tried and convicted by a Kimble County jury on charges including smuggling of persons causing death and aggravated assault; Durr said the judge later sentenced Sandoval to 99 years for smuggling of persons causing death, plus additional terms for related offenses. “This event has become an example of the brutality of these smuggling events,” Durr said.

Other awards included recognition for trooper Ivan Brightwell for rescue at a crash scene in Chambers County and for corporal Eric De Leon for extensive interdiction work that included narcotics and weapons seizures. The commission framed the presentations as a chance to “put a face” to the department’s life‑saving work and said the department plans to share related media publicly.

Why it matters: the awards highlight frontline rescue actions and the criminal case underscores prosecutorial outcomes associated with smuggling incidents; the sentencing mentioned is a formal judicial outcome reported by DPS staff.

No formal commission action was required beyond the awards and recognitions presented during the meeting.