El Paso Shooting: The Last Hospitalized Patient Has Died

On Sunday, April 26, 2020, Guillermo Garcia passed away. He was a youth soccer coach and the last patient who had been hospitalized after the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso last August.

That means he held out for almost nine months since the tragic event, which now with Garcia's death, claimed the lives of 23 people. The New York Times reported it as the "deadliest anti-Latino attack in modern American history."

On that tragic day, the 36-year old Garcia was working in front of the Walmart store with friends and family to raise funds to help his daughter's soccer team when the 21-year old gunman Patrick Crusius opened fire.  Nicknamed the "Tank," Garcia did his best to shield his wife and son from the bullets. He took the lion's share in his back. Such courage.

The New York Times reports "Mr. Garcia’s injuries were among the most extensive. He remained in intensive care for weeks, undergoing more than 17 surgeries, and had been hospitalized ever since the attack."

There had been some good days along the way. At one point he was even breathing on his own and asked for water. After months of intensive care and daily, even moment-by-moment worry on the part of his loved ones, "he died Saturday night at Del Sol Medical Center, the hospital where he was being treated."

RIP, Guillermo Garcia. <3