Stephany Gauffeny Garcia says right now, her husband looks nothing like she remembers him.
“It’s really hard seeing him like that because it doesn’t look like him at all, you know; his face is swollen, you know, his head is all stapled, you know, wounds everywhere, tubes going down his throat,” she said.
She and her attorneys say her husband, Miguel Angel Garcia, was one of the detainees in the back of an ICE transport van when a sniper opened fire on Wednesday morning.
NBC News has independently confirmed Garcia’s identity.
Gauffeny Garcia said the surveillance video was difficult to watch.
“I did not want to look at it. I told my sister, ‘I don’t want to look at it.’ Because, You know, that’s basically the moment that he was getting shot at,” Gauffeny Garcia said as she cried.
According to Tarrant County court records, Garcia was charged with a DWI in August.
He was taken into ICE custody for being in the country illegally.
The Garcias’ attorneys believe he was being processed the morning he was shot.
“Him having, let’s say, the DUI, okay, does that justify him getting shot at? No one deserves to get shot at or killed the way that they were,” Gauffeny Garcia said.
She has many questions about what happened on Wednesday.
“How long did it take them to get him? Was it immediately?” she asked.
In a press conference on Thursday, federal leaders praised law enforcement’s response.
“Agents from both ICE and the ATF put themselves in the line of fire to move individuals off the transportation vehicles, in an attempt to protect and rescue those that were injured,” said Joseph Rothrock, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Dallas.
For now, Gauffeny-Garcia is trying to make the most of the two-hour visits she gets with her husband, under the supervision of ICE agents.
“I do get to hold his hand, talk to him,” she said.
NBC 5 asked ICE what their protocol is for detainees who are hospitalized.
In a statement on Saturday evening, an ICE spokesperson said while they’re generally restrained and provided security experts, the agency is working to change that for those injured in Wednesday’s attack.
“ICE detainees who are taken to an outside medical facility for care are generally restrained and provided security escorts to ensure for the safety of the detainee, facility staff and others in the hospital and prevent a potential escape from ICE custody. However, due the tragic circumstances that led to their hospitalization, ICE is working with the family and friends of the detainees injured during the attack on the Dallas Field Office to allow for the same visitation hours that the medical facility provides for all family and friends and to ensure they are provided with the appropriate level of comfort and privacy as they spend time with their loved ones.” -ICE spokesperson
Gauffeny Garcia, who is nine months pregnant, hopes she’ll soon be able to get to see the face she remembers of the man she married–with her new baby in hand.
“Every time I get to the hospital room, even though I’ve already seen him, it still hurts to see him like that,” she said.