“It is an image that will stay in my head forever”: Forensic doctor confesses to living a trauma after identifying victims in Uvalde
Eulalio Díaz Jr, confessed that he will seek help to process what he experienced, as he assures that no one can be prepared for a trauma of such magnitude.
Photo: Brandon Bell / Getty Images
As a forensic doctor, Eulalio “Lalo” Díaz Jr. knows how to deal with death, at least that’s what he thought before the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas. Today he recognizes that he will need help to process that trauma
That 19 May, Diaz was on call. The county is so small that the judge on duty also acts as Uvalde’s de facto coroner.
“It was my luck… my bad luck,” Díaz told the NPR channel. “But I don’t wish it on anyone.”
Eulalio “Lalo” Diaz , Jr. had the horrible task of identifying the children shot to death at Robb Elementary.
He says nothing could’ve prepared him for what he saw in that school. The images will stay with him forever.https://t.co/AUQgDrw1KM
— NPR (@NPR) May 31, 2022
Seated in his office at the Uvalde County Courthouse, across the street from a makeshift memorial in the town square, Díaz recalled the shock of entering the venue of the massacre that included so many young children whose parents and grandparents he has known for years, and one of his own high school classmates.
“I know the two teachers, their husbands”, he said.
“I probably know three quarters of the children’s families or their grandparents. It’s that kind of community and it’s close by,” Diaz said.
Because there is no local medical examiner’s office, the justice of the peace regularly serves as the County Medical Examiner, as well as presiding over misdemeanor court cases, minor civil disputes, and marriage ceremonies.
Díaz was called to the school to identify the small, devastated bodies of most of the 9-year-olds 10 years before they could perform the autopsy, “This is the most devastating news you would want to hear,” he said,
Nothing could have prepared him for what awaited him at school.
The case was so shocking and so unlike anything he had ever had to deal with, that it required additional help from the Bexar County Medical Examiner in San Antonio. While waiting for his colleague to make the trip to Uvalde, Díaz tried to work up his courage.
“For two hours, I sat there, preparing myself for the scene we are about to to see… because you know it will be a difficult scene… You have to be strong and you have to maintain professionalism because the families now count on you”, he confessed.
“So when we got there, there were kids in four classrooms. We went room by room making the plan together about what we were going to need to make sure we identified everyone correctly”, he said.
“It’s something you never want to see and it’s something you can’t prepare for. It is an image that will stay in my head forever…” and reiterated that he has no intention of ever sharing exactly what he saw.
Among the victims he found a friend, lying motionless on the floor, was a former classmate, Irma Garcia, one of the two teachers who were murdered that day.
“She was a year younger than me in middle and high school, and I met her husband,” she said, referring to Joe Garcia, who died of a heart attack two days later. “She was a year older than me. They had been high school sweethearts. I have known them all my life.”
Diaz said the scene will haunt him for the rest of his life. You know you will need help to process the trauma.
Read more: With personalized coffins, Funerals begin and farewell to the victims of the massacre in Uvalde Video reveals that the Uvalde Police knew that the children were alive inside the school with the shooter and did not enter immediately VIDEO: Girl victim of the shooting in Uvalde longed to go viral on TikTok, now her family will fulfill her dream
