Irma Garcia, 48, was one of two teachers killed in Shooting at Robb Elementary School in Garcia’s hometown of Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday.
less than two hours after the morning text message Martinez received call from him family tell him that his uncle died after being rushed to the hospital due to an apparent heart attack. attack.
Martinez wrote to him brother around noon. “It’s so overwhelming.”
Thursday when Martinez started to fill in details from relatives, according to him, he felt unwell with grief.
50 year old Joe Garcia just back in families home after a risk out leave flowers for the memorial set up for victims outside Robb Elementary School. He was in kitchen, said Martinez, as he suddenly grabbed and fell over.
Martinez mother, who was in house with in family, went into action, doing chest compressions until paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital. He died there.
“All just in shock,” Martinez said.
in front of uncle deathMartinez said Washington Post on on Wednesday that his tia Irma died a hero and that his family wanted to be remembered as someone who sacrificed her life to protect her students.
“They weren’t just her students. These were her children and she gave her life on line. She gave her life to protect them,” Martinez said. “Here’s the type of the person she was.”
On Thursday, he struggled to find words to describe his aunt and uncle. Together the couple had four children: Christian, 23; José, 19; Liliana, 15; and Alisandra, 12 years old.
“Them family was an All-American family,” he said of his aunt, uncle and cousins. “They are great people. Whole family they are all great people. They don’t deserve it.”
Love Joe and Irma Garcia story stretched a quarter centurypacked with bbq, music, scenic country trips and foursome couples children.
“I sincerely believe that Joe is dead of broken heart and loss of love of his life of more 25 years is too long to bear,” wrote Irma’s cousin Debra Austin. in en online fundraiser set in support of foursome garcia children.
Joe was a devoted father supervisor at his job at HEB Grocery store and adoring husband, who adored the woman he met in high school and then married, Martinez said.
But this week Garcia home – usually site of exultant family fees, filling holiday dishes and traditions like share grapes for luck at midnight on On New Year’s Eve – turned into a monument of pain of a family what in saw both in less than two days parents perish.
“Our family is just in right now in ruins,” Martinez said. “No one expected of this is. It’s heartbreaking.”
