Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Publix worker ran to explosion to help
PLANTATION — Christian Garcia, a Publix customer service clerk, was sitting in the Plantation store’s cafe this summer when he heard what he thought was a lightning strike.
Ceiling tiles began to fall and he ran outside toward the sound.
A paramedic in training, Garcia, 23, saw Matthew Seese bleeding profusely from his right arm and leg.
Debris from the explosion rained around them. Garcia, who had recently passed his emergency medical technician exam, took off his belt and created a tourniquet for Seese’s leg as they awaited help from fire-rescue crews.
For running towards the injured and his quick-thinking heroism, Publix honored the soft-spoken graduate of South Plantation
High on Wednesday with a gold medal, a gift card and a ceremony in the front of the store at 1181 S. University Drive.
Garcia has worked at Publix for the past five years, starting as a bagger and then learning to become a cashier and now a front-desk clerk.
“It was second nature for me to go there and help,” Garcia said. In firefighter training classes, “they tell you it will become second nature but you never know how you will feel at that moment,” he said.
The July 6 blast injured 22 people and wiped out a defunct pizza shop at the north end of the Market on University plaza. State officials attributed the explosion to a gas valve that had been turned on a few hours earlier at Pizzafire, a tenant that had left the property in December.
The blast rained debris and shrapnel; pieces of metal and shredded pink insulation littered surrounding parking lots and properties.
The state Fire Marshal’s Office is handling the investigation into what caused the gas valve to open. The investigation is “open and ongoing,” spokesman Devin Galetta said Wednesday.
A developer is planning 12 new storefronts to replace the destroyed strip. The Publix where Garcia works remains open, but several businesses had to close after the blast, including Carraba’s Italian eatery, Dragon Gourmet Buffet, Zona Fresca and LA Fitness.
Seese, 30, an insurance firm vice president, said he had just finished his workout at LA Fitness when he decided to pick up a juice drink at the Tropical Smoothie in the strip center. He heard a “boom-boomboom” and started to run the other way. He saw his leg and arm were bleeding from flying shrapnel.
He wrapped his leg in the shirt he was wearing and a friend did the same for his arm. That’s when Garcia arrived and several men carried him to University Drive, where rescuers had set up. Because there was so much debris, fire-rescue crews couldn’t enter the center with their trucks.
Seese needed staples in his leg and stitches in his arm. He also had plastic surgery on his leg. His Lexus was destroyed and he has spent the past few months visiting doctors and physical therapists.
He saw Garcia on Wednesday for the first time since the explosion and thanked him for the nimble actions that prevented him from losing even more blood.
“Anytime,” Garcia said.