Husband of teacher killed in Uvalde school shooting dies days later
The couple were high school sweethearts and had four children together, ranging in ages from 12 to 23.
The husband of Irma Garcia, one of the two teachers killed in the Texas elementary school shooting, has died from a fatal heart attack.
Joe Garcia, 50, Irma’s husband of 24 years, died Thursday “of a broken heart,” said John Martinez, Garcia’s nephew, as reported by PEOPLE. The couple were high school sweethearts and had four children, ages ranging from 12 to 23.
According to Martinez, his uncle may have died from cardiac arrest. He was told by authorities that attempts to revive him via chest compressions were unsuccessful.
Irma Garcia, 46, had been a teacher at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde for 23 years. She was trying to protect her fourth-grade students when she and fellow teacher Eva Mireles were killed during the mass shooting on Tuesday. As reported by The Washington Post, Garcia and Mireles had been a teaching team for the past five years. They died together in their fourth-grade classroom when 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos stormed the school and also killed 19 children.
All of the children killed were reportedly in the second, third, and fourth grades. Police say the gunman was shot dead after he barricaded himself inside the school for over an hour. Garcia’s nephew said she died while shielding children from the gunfire. One child was found dead in her arms.
“I want her to be remembered as someone who sacrificed her life and put her life on the line for her kids,” said Martinez on Wednesday. “They weren’t just her students. Those were her kids, and she put her life on the line, she lost her life to protect them. That’s the type of person she was.
She was a light in every room. She always had joy in her. She was a light to the world. I just really do want her to be remembered as someone who put her life on the line, to the very last moment. She sacrificed herself,” he said, per the People report.
“In her life, she saw the bright side of things. She was one of the funniest people I’ve honestly really ever met. I mean, there are times where I would just wanna, like, hang out with only her,” he said.
The family has created a GoFundMe campaign to help cover burial expenses. A second campaign has been created for both Joe and Irma Garcia.
“She sacrificed herself protecting the kids in her classroom. She was a hero,” Martinez wrote on a fundraising page.
The Texas massacre is the third-deadliest school shooting in the U.S. behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 and the Sandy Hook incident in 2012.
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