Carlos Arredondo, Heroic Bystander At Boston Marathon Bombing, Was Undocumented Immigrant

Media outlets have been reporting about "The Cowboy Hat Hero" who has been photographed helping the injured during the Boston Marathon explosions. The man, Carlos Arredondo, was in the VIP stands with his wife supporting the National Guard runners who were representing Run for the Fallen Maine, an organization established to honor Marines who have been killed since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

What most people don't know is that Arredondo was once an undocumented immigrant in the United States. In a 2005 Washington Post interview, he shares that he was just 19 when he snuck into the country from his homeland, Costa Rica. In 1983, he married his now ex-wife Victoria, and they had two sons: Alex and Brian. According to the Daily Mail UK, Arredondo became a US citizen in 2006.

The media has also reported the tragedy of the parents, as Alex died in 2004 during Iraq and Brian killed himself in 2011. Perhaps it's this suffering that inspired Arredondo, trained by the Red Cross, to help out all the injured victims of the bomb blast.

"There [were] so many people. So many people begging me for help, begging me for help," said Arredondo. "But I could only help one at a time. So I helped that young man."