Joe Garcia, the grieving husband of one of the teachers killed in the Texas school shooting this week, suffered a fatal heart attack on Thursday while preparing for his wife’s funeral.
The family says he “passed away due to grief.”
Joe and Irma Garcia were high school sweethearts and shared 24 beautiful years of marriage before she was gunned down in a senseless act of violence on Tuesday (May 24) at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Irma and her co-teacher Eva Mireles were killed along with 19 elementary school children.
Her son, Christian Garcia, said a friend in law enforcement who was at the scene saw his mother shielding students during the rampage.
John Martinez, Irma’s nephew shared the news of Joe’s passing via social media writing:
EXTREMELY heartbreaking and come with deep sorrow to say that my Tia Irma’s husband Joe Garcia has passed away due to grief, i truly am at a loss for words for how we are all feeling,
PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR FAMILY, God have mercy on us, this isn’t easy
See his original tweet below.
John told NBC News that Joe Garcia had gone to deliver flowers for Irma’s memorial service.
When he got home, he was at home for no more than three minutes after sitting down on a chair with the family.
He just fell over.
They tried doing chest compressions and nothing worked.
The ambulance came and they couldn’t, they couldn’t bring them back.
John received the news from his younger brother.
He called me and he said like, ‘Please pray for Joe.’ That’s all he told me.
And I said. ‘What happened? ‘And he was like, ‘I don’t know. We don’t know yet.’
And then I get a call I think, no more than 30 minutes later with him crying and saying he didn’t make it.
The family has set up a GoFundMe if you are interested in supporting financially.
I can’t imagine what the Garcia family is going through.
Please keep them and all of the families impacted by this tragedy uplifted in prayer.
Source: NBC News
