ALAMOGORDO — Bud Hertzner went to El Paso to take a medical stress test. On his way home, he and his wife, Sharon, received a surprise at a local Border Patrol checkpoint.

'I pulled up in the station at (U.S.) 70 and the guy had a thing on (his) belt like a cell phone,' Hertzner, an Alamogordo resident, said. 'It was blinking.'

He was surprised when he was asked to provide paperwork to prove he had been to the doctor.

'Sharon and I looked at each other like, 'What's going on here?'' Hertzner said.

The equipment on the officer's belt turned out to be a radiation detector and, because Hertzner's medical test involved nuclear medicine, he was slightly radioactive. The officer at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint asked for Hertzner's driver's license and for his letter of appointment to the doctor.

After verifying Hertzner's identity and glancing through his car, the Border Patrol officer waved him on through. ...