The husband of one of the teachers killed in a Texas school shooting this week collapsed and died on Thursday while preparing for his wife’s funeral, the family said, according to NBC News.
Joe Garcia had been married to high school sweetheart, Irma Garcia, for 24 years before she was gunned down Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“I don’t even know how to feel. I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it” that Joe Garcia has passed away, Irma Garcia’s nephew, John Martinez, told NBC News.
Irma Garcia and co-teacher Eva Mireles were both killed along with 19 children at the school that’s about 85 miles west of San Antonio.
Her son, Christian Garcia, said a friend in law enforcement who was at the scene saw his mother shielding students during the rampage.
Martinez said he was told that Joe Garcia “went to go deliver flowers for Irma at the memorial for her.”
“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.”
Broken heart syndrome typically occurs immediately after a person has received horrific news, he added. But some people may take time to emotionally process a loss, meaning broken heart syndrome wouldn’t occur right away.
Martinez said he first learned the news from his younger brother.
“He called me and he said like, ‘Please pray for Joe.’ That’s all he told me,” Martinez said. “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.”
Doctors described this as a potential example of “broken heart syndrome, formally known as takotsubo cardiomyopathy, that generally occurs in response to an extreme stressor like the sudden death of a spouse. Unlike a standard heart attack, which is caused by blocked arteries, people with broken heart syndrome release a burst of stress hormones that prevent their heart from contracting properly.
“It’s a classic case of broken heart syndrome from what’s been described,” said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Bhatt said it’s impossible to know for sure whether Garcia experienced a standard heart attack or broken heart syndrome without X-ray imaging or an autopsy.
“Either type of heart attack can be triggered by extreme emotional stress of the sort that would happen if someone just heard, for example, that their wife had died,” Bhatt said.
“In some cases, it might be a day later. It might be when someone realizes, ‘Oh, wow, my loved one actually is dead. They’re really not coming back,’” Bhatt said.
“It sounds like that’s what happened” in this case.
