The brother of a victim of the New Orleans attack has paid a tearful tribute to his “best friend” and “role model” – and revealed what the pair last said to each other.
“The last thing we ever said to each other, he told me he loved me”, Jack Bech said of his brother Martin “Tiger” Bech, 27, as he spoke with Sky News’s US correspondent James Matthews.
“I told him I love him, he told me he loved me even more, hung up the phone – and that was the last words I ever spoke to him.”
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The pair spoke just hours before Tiger became one of the 14 people killed in the attack on Bourbon Street, where people celebrating the New Year were run down by a man driving a pick-up truck.
Tiger Bech (left) and Jack Bech (right). Pic: Jack Bech
Jack said he and his family will make sure “everyone knows” his brother’s name.
“He was my best friend, my role model,” Jack said. “[I] looked up to him. [He was] smart, inspired me to do everything I have done in this life. Inspired my whole family. He was loved by so many people. He always made time for the little guy. He was special.”
Jack Bech, brother of New Orleans attack victim Martin ‘Tiger’ Bech
Jack said his brother’s “legacy will live on forever”.
“My family are going to make sure that that happens, that everyone knows his name,” he said.
“Yesterday was the hardest day of my life and each day will be the hardest day of my life just living there knowing I can’t speak to him ever again.”
Tiger’s family managed to see him while he was unconscious in hospital but still alive, time that Jack said was precious to them.
“He couldn’t respond to any of us, but I truly believe he could hear us, his eyes were closed.”
“God kept his heart beating for a reason, I believe so my family could say goodbye,” he said.
The Bech family with Jack Bech in American football gear in the centre with his brother Tiger in the white top on the right, standing in between his sister and mother. On the left of the picture are Jack and Tiger’s father and sister. Pic: Jack Bech
The time they spent together at Christmas was the best “we ever had as a family”, Jack said.
“He saw all his friends when he was home, he made time for everybody and he saw so many people he hadn’t seen in so long.”
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Jack said he believed that everything happens for a reason.
On the night before Tiger died, Jack said his brother “confessed his faith and his love in God”.
“That was the first time any of us had heard that in a long time, a decade, years and years,” he added.
Tiger “had such a great life”, Jack said. “He packed in 80 years into 27”.
