Texas: Deputy recalls being struck by drunken driver

Ten days before Christmas 2013, Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Candice Rodriguez was on her way to work at the jail.As she stopped to help a stranded motorist, her car was struck from behind by an SUV driven by Rodrigo Picon-Garcia.

Garcia, whose blood alcohol was over twice the legal limit, was convicted on Friday of intoxication assault of a public servant. “I just remember being in excruciating pain and screaming about how bad it hurt,” Rodriguez recalled.

During her testimony last week, Rodriguez told how she suffered a fractured spine and leg and spent several months in the hospital followed by intense physical therapy. On Monday, she told how her desire to return to work kept her determined during that time. Her hope was to be transferred from her job as a jail guard to a patrol position within the Sheriff’s Office.

That dream, she said, has now become reality. “I’ve been cleared by work and I received orders to go to patrol and I get  sworn in on the 30th," she said. Her chance, she said, to do what is instinctive just as it was on that December night: to help people. “If you don’t help people, to me, it’s just a very empty feeling," she said.