It's a true short story I'm writing for a writing contest. I've posted it here a few times before, but it's a slightly updated version. Do you have any suggestions how to make it better? The deadline is tomorrow, so today is my last chance for editing and making it the best it can be.

"All I know about Alex is that he was born on April 16, 1991 and served a month in jail for driving without a license. He was seventeen years old when the flood-damaged building collapsed, killing him instantly.

Strange to think how little I know about him compared to how much he’s changed me. Never can I forget the moment when the medics lifted his crushed and lifeless body from the building's remains.

As the medics carried the stretcher with Alex into the ambulance, the young woman in charge of the investigation pulled me aside to ask me some questions: What are you doing in New Orleans? How did you find him? Was he alive when I did?

Truth is, I didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. It had happened all too quickly for me to take in. I was only ten, after all. But, I also wanted to act old for my age, show off a little, no matter the circumstances. I was always that way. So I told her what I knew, however vague.

“My aunt has been volunteering for the past month,” I told the woman, who was now scribbling furiously in her notebook. I couldn’t help smiling a little at how old I sounded. “We wanted to help, so we came here.”

Jared, a family friend who had tagged along on the trip, had joined us then. “You know, to help with Katrina,” he said as I squirmed against his tickling attempts.

She nodded as Jared finally gave mercy, smirking at my weak attempts to give him punishment for interrupting my interview. But despite my complaints, she turned to him for questioning.

“Ricky – that man over there, in the green shirt – was driving along about there,” he said, gesturing to the street far off in the distance. “We – well, we couldn’t read the map, so we didn’t know how to get to the place, and had to, you know, stop.”

Jared ignored my raised eyebrows at his failed attempt to lie to the reporter. Well, not really lie, but more like dress the truth. And what the woman was now recording in her tiny notebook was definitely not the full truth.

What is the full truth? That’s a whole other story, one that I have yet to comprehend to this day. The basic events that took place though were quite simple, if looked at from a bird eye’s view."

That's not the end - I have the whole story written, this is just the part that I think needs the most work. So do you have any suggestions?

Anything you could do to help would be tremendous. Thanks guys.
@Ansley
I see what you mean, but I was 10 years old when it happened. It didn't sink in that we had just witnessed someone being killed - that comes later, at the end of the story.