A man who took a bullet to the foot during the El Paso mass shooting recalled the horrifying moment his 15-year-old nephew was shot dead right in front of him, according to a new report.
Octavio Ramiro Lizarde, 23, was in Walmart around 11 a.m. Saturday with his nephew Javier Rodriguez when alleged shooter Patrick Crusius, 21, opened fire, Fox News reported.
“I did lose my nephew right in front of me,” Lizarde told the network Monday, shortly before undergoing surgery at Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso. “It was a horrible image and I hope nobody ever goes through [that].”
He sat in a wheelchair, surrounded by family and friends, as he recalled his nephew’s last moments.
“I heard the gunshots,” he told the network. “I grabbed [Javier], and shots were fired. So I took him to the back of the room … and everything happened to my nephew and when I was trying to [crawl] back to where he was hiding, [the gunman] shot my foot.”
Dr. Jason Orr, an active-duty member of the military and an orthopedic surgeon with William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, was set to operate on Lizarde on Tuesday.
He said it could take at least a year for the man to recover — and he’s expected to require at least three more operations.
Javier RodriguezFacebook“Of course there is a high risk of infection in cases like this with high-velocity gunshot wounds,” Orr told the network, adding that there’s still a chance Lizarde could lose his leg. “It’s not just the bone loss that Octavio has. It’s also the tremendous amount of soft-tissue damage. And that’s why the surgery we are going to do today is going to try to minimize the risk of long-term complications with infection.”
But Lizarde said he was thankful to be alive.
“[The shooter] had the chance to kill me but he didn’t, because God’s with me,” he told Fox.
“It’s very painful,” Lizarde added. “And I just hope that my family and I get better emotionally.”
Crusius allegedly slaughtered Javier and 21 others — and injured dozens more — only about 20 minutes after he posted a rambling, anti-immigrant “manifesto’’ online.
He was taken into custody by authorities “without incident.”
