Seaman Recruit Jose Garcia was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately for him and his family, a doctor was in the right place at the right time, and because of that, Garcia lived to tell about it.
Garcia, 18, arrived home in Emporia on Saturday to recuperate from potentially fatal injuries inflicted by a shipmate who slashed Garcia with a knife during breakfast in the galley at the Norfolk Naval Base, Norfolk, Va. The incident happened on March 8.
The attack came unexpectedly, Garcia said.
He was eating breakfast and talking with a friend sitting beside him; he noticed movement of someone approaching down the aisle on his left, but gave it no thought.
“I was just sitting there,” he said, recalling his surroundings that day. People were watching the news on television and visiting.
“Then out of nowhere, this guy comes up, picks me up by the chin and slices my throat,” he said.
His friend jumped up to wrestle the man off Garcia, while more injuries were being inflicted.
“The guy jabbed me right under my right rib, in my gut,” Garcia said. The attacker also made a smaller wound just under his right nipple.
The neck wound was opened from the left side of his Adam’s apple, around his throat and upward near the top of his right ear. Some of his intestines protruded from the wound in his side. At that point, events turned Garcia’s way. A doctor was nearby and acted immediately to treat the young man.
“My doctor on my ship came up and everyone held me down on the ground,” Garcia said.
Garcia’s temporal artery had been cut and the doctor made a larger cut in order to be able to staunch the bleeding until Garcia could be taken to a civilian hospital nearby.
There, he underwent two surgeries to repair the damage done by his unidentified attacker.
“I never met the guy before in my life,” Garcia said. “Never even talked to him on the ship” during the three days they had been on the USS Cape St. George.
“A lot of people didn’t know anything about him because he was a loner,” Garcia said. “At least, that’s what I was told.”
The attack is under investigation and the 24-year-old assailant is being held and will undergo psychiatric evaluation early in April.
Garcia had just recently spent two weeks at home with his parents, Judy and Shawn Garcia, and family after being transferred from Chicago to Norfolk.
Garcia had been enthusiastic about joining the Navy, though his mother did not share that enthusiasm. He enlisted at 17 in the Delayed Entry program and went into service a few months after graduating from Emporia High School.
Then, he was known as Jose Aguilar; after graduation in 2006, he was adopted by his stepfather, Shawn Garcia.
Shawn and Judy Garcia learned of Jose’s stabbing a short time later, when someone from the Naval base called Shawn Garcia at home. He’d finished working third shift at Hopkins Manufacturing and had been asleep about an hour when the telephone rang and he learned that his son had been seriously injured.
Shawn Garcia went to Tyson Meats, where his wife works on first shift, to let her know what had happened.
“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do was to walk out there and tell his mom,” he said.
Judy Garcia knew something was wrong as she walked from the slaughter side to processing.
“Then I saw his face and he tried to hold me before me told me,” she said. “… I thought (Jose) was already gone.”
The couple then sought help from the Red Cross and received none.
“That’s what they tell us, in an emergency, call the Red Cross, but they didn’t answer the phone,” Judy Garcia said.
A network of family, friends and neighbors then began to help make arrangements for them to travel to Norfolk.
Long journey
It was decided that Shawn Garcia and brother-in-law Johnny Couch would drive to Norfolk, Judy Garcia and their son, Damon, would take a flight from Wichita, and their 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, would stay with friends.
En route to the airport, they learned that their son’s condition had stabilized and began to feel a little easier about the situation.
They encountered difficulties at the airport in Wichita because Judy’s name in Spanish is spelled “Yuri.” Her driver’s license and the name on the airplane ticket did not jibe.
“We practically begged,” Shawn said, but they were not successful in getting his wife on the plane.
Judy Garcia gave credit to Veronica Couch for speaking up and explaining the situation to the satisfaction of the airline employee.
On board and ready to take off, they heard an announcement: one of the plane’s engines was experiencing mechanical difficulties and the flight would be delayed. Eventually, the two Garcias managed to board a re-routed flight to Dallas and on to Norfolk, where they landed 13 1/2 hours after the original estimated arrival time.
Judy Garcia’s brother already had arrived from Florida, and the drivers from Emporia made it to Norfolk a few hours later, after 20 straight hours of driving.
Judy Garcia’s mother, Martha Rodriguez, took a 40-hour bus ride from Matamoras, Mexico, to be with her grandson, who was in the midst of his second surgery — an eight-hour job — when the Emporia contingent arrived at the hospital.
They stayed at The Fisherhouse, an on-base housing unit available to families of patients in the base hospital, where Jose Garcia was transferred a few days later. When he had healed enough to satisfy doctors, almost 2 1/2 weeks after the attack, they allowed him to come home for 30 days.
Aftermath
He carries the scars from the attack and from the surgeries. The skin on his face and neck show signs of healing, but the nerve regeneration is unpredictable and it will be about six months before anyone knows whether the nerves will heal properly.
For now, he has feeling in his face, but the muscles do not move.
One eye will not shut completely and he uses eyedrops every two hours, or wears an eye patch, to keep it from drying out.
“He still can’t smile like he did,” Shawn Garcia said. “His lifts his mouth to talk. He’s not the same kid we sent away, that’s for sure.”
Jose Garcia carries a four-inch scar below his ribs and a smaller scar higher on his chest; both came from the assailant’s knife. Another scar runs from his sternum to his naval, evidence of the surgeon’s knife used to take care of his internal injuries.
But he is healing. He will not know his future in the Navy until the doctors decide. They are keeping in touch. If complete healing occurs, he will take his place back on ship; if it does not, he will have shore duty.
In either case, he wants to stay in the Navy. He joined because it seemed a good way to earn a college education and he was considering making the Navy his career. Having a career in limbo for a time bothers the young man; however, he is especially heartened at the response from his new friends at the Norfolk Naval Base.
“At the same time while I was recovering on the base, everybody on my ship was taking care of us,” Jose Garcia said.
His parents feel much the same way.
“Even though we were that far away, we felt connected to everyone,” Judy Garcia said.
Family, friends and co-workers kept telephones busy, inquiring about Jose Garcia’s condition and offering prayers and help as they could.
That support made a tremendous difference for the family, they said, and they feel exceptionally grateful for all of it.
“We found out we had a lot more friends than we thought we did,” said Shawn Garcia.