S. Texas official who was on brink of death is recovering

When McMullen County Commissioner Larry Garcia checked into Metropolitan Methodist Hospital for treatment of an abscess in late April, he expected to be back home in a few days.

Instead, dangerous complications arose, Garcia’s heart stopped beating five times and he almost didn’t make it home at all.

“Medically, I shouldn’t even be here. I feel like God chose to keep me alive for a reason,” Garcia, 69, said recently while recovering in Tilden from his ordeal. “I’m feeling pretty good now. I’m getting out a little bit, making sure all my stop signs are up. There aren’t too many.”

And while a man of faith, Garcia is also quite certain that the special medical team at Methodist Hospital who treated his life-threatening pulmonary embolism is the main reason he is still alive.

“They were unbelievable. They were there constantly monitoring me,” he said.

Garcia’s medical miracle story began May 14, when he was about to go home after being treated for the abscess and a malignant kidney tumor that had turned up on a scan.

While waiting for a nephew to pick him up at the hospital, he suddenly felt dizzy and clammy. He called a nurse and then passed out.

According to hospital officials, over the next hour and a half, he had five cardiac arrests and was on the brink of death multiple times.

Having suffered a pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots in his lungs, Garcia was kept alive with CPR that was so strenuous it broke several of his ribs.

When his son Chuck arrived, he was confronted with a terrible situation. “He had a ventilator in his mouth and was sitting there, eyes open. He looked like he was going to die,” Chuck said. “The doctor told me I needed to make my peace. It didn’t look good.”

Garcia’s only possible chance was with the special pulmonary embolism response team at Methodist Hospital.

The team had a special ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, machine that could provide oxygenated blood to his father and possibly save him.

But, the doctor cautioned Chuck, his father was unlikely to survive the ambulance trip to the South Texas Medical Center.

“We prayed about it, me and my aunt Gloria,” Chuck said. “I told her that if was me lying there, and my father was making the decision, and if I had even the slightest chance of living if they took me to the ECMO, that he would do it.”

Garcia survived the cross-town trip to Methodist and passed the crucial neurological tests to prove that he had not suffered brain damage. He was hooked up to the ECMO machine, which began oxygenating his blood.

“He was on massive life support and barely able to maintain normal blood pressure,” said Dr. Pavan Thangudu, leader of the pulmonary embolism response team.

“He had significant clots in his lungs causing the right ventricle of his heart to fail. ECMO was able to relieve the pressure on his heart, ultimately sustaining his cardiac function,” he added.

Garcia responded very quickly. Within 24 hours, he was off his ventilator and all life-support medications. Within 48 hours, he was removed from the ECMO.

“Typically, these types of patients are too sick to treat,” Thangudu

said. “Larry’s story is a reflection of what we are capable of achieving.”

According to the hospital, the pulmonary embolism response team has treated more than 175 patients with pulmonary embolisms, including 15 of which were “massive.”

In late May, Garcia was finally released from the hospital, 35 pounds lighter but on the road to recovery. He is looking forward to resuming his duties as county commissioner and as the school district’s director of maintenance and transportation.

Looking back, his son has no doubt the specialty care team at Methodist is the reason his father made it.

“I couldn’t believe it actually happened. Once it did, it was amazing that all the things that had to happen fell into place for him to be alive today,” Chuck said.