HOUSTON – A car accident may have ended a Deer Park man’s dreams of serving our nation in the U.S. Army.
It took several Good Samaritans to pull 21-year-old Jonathan Garcia from his burning car two weeks ago.
“We had to pick up the whole car and we busted one of the windows,” said JJ Hernandez, one of the men who was driving by and stopped to assist Garcia. “One of us had a knife and cut his seat belt while me and another guy lifted up his car, and we were able to pull him out simultaneously.”
Hernandez, who is an aspiring firefighter, said he was among the five to six Good Samaritans who ran toward Garcia’s burning car on Spencer Highway near El Paso Street the night of Feb. 12.
“We pulled him out and he was still unresponsive to everything. His legs were on fire. His pants were burnt off, his shoes were burnt off,” Hernandez added.
Garcia was delivering food when he got into a wreck with a woman in another car. His mother Aracely De La Cruz said he’s been in critical condition at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the medical center ever since.
“It burned him from his legs all the way to his thighs. The doctors were not able to save the bottom part of his legs,” De La Cruz said.
Both of Garcia’s legs had to be amputated, he had brain bruising, a broken nose, fractured pelvis and ruptured artery. De La Cruz said her son is unaware because he’s hasn’t gained consciousness since the crash two weeks ago.
De La Cruz said her son had just received his GED and passed an exam to enlist in the U.S. Army, which was his dream.
“He was just like so excited, and we had our next meeting, it was going to be on Feb. 15, which was going to be his physical, and we didn’t get to make it there,” she said.
De La Cruz said Garcia is a fighter and is making small movements in the ICU, which is a sign of improvement. The mother of two said having her son in the ICU has taken an emotional and financial toll on her family.
“A couple of days ago, it was already running into the millions. One million dollars to keep my son here,” she said.
Still, she’s grateful for Hernandez and the other Good Samaritans that saved her son’s life.
“It felt as if everybody was there for a specific reason,” Hernandez said. “Like God himself put all of us there at the right time.”
De La Cruz created an online fundraiser to help with Garcia’s mounting hospital bills. If you would like to help, click here.