EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — It’s the call no one wants to get. However, the reality is that dozens of El Paso families are dealing with the panic that comes along with finding out their loved ones were injured Saturday’s Cielo Vista Walmart shooting.
For the Velazquez family, it hit twice as hard.
“We all just panicked, we were scared, we were crying, we didn’t know what to do,” Daisy Fuentes said.
Daisy’s grandparents, Juan and Nicholasa Velazquez were both critically injured outside of the Cielo Vista Walmart Saturday morning. Juan is in his 70s and Nicholasa is in her 60s, family members say.
She tells KTSM that her grandparents had just parked their car in the Walmart parking lot when they were approached by the shooter.
“So they had already been shot when my grandma called my mom, and they were just crying telling us that it hurt where they shot them at, it hurt,” Daisy said. “My mom was just trying to tell her to stay calm, to just breathe and my grandma just told my mom to call the ambulance because they weren’t coming fast enough.”
Daisy and her uncle, Alvaro Mena, who both live in Colorado, immediately went to the airport and jumped on the first flight to El Paso they could find. They arrived late Saturday night and immediately went to the East El Paso hospital where they’ve been waiting with their family since.
Nicholasa Velazquez was shot in the stomach near her ribs and shot in the face. The family says her prognosis is good.
Juan, however, isn’t doing as well, the family tells KTSM.
He was shot in the side of his stomach. The bullet damaged his kidneys and intestines. The family tells KTSM he has undergone one surgery already and doctors advised them he would need another surgery on later Sunday. He has yet to regain consciousness.
“That’s their Walmart. That’s the Walmart they go to every time they go,” Alvaro Mena, the couple’s son, said. “They usually go at night, but I don’t know why they were there so early.”
Mena says a woman in the parking lot was waving at them, trying to tell them to stay away when they pulled up, but it was too late.
“Just the fact that she called my mom and my mom answered, that was amazing because if not, we wouldn’t have known all of this,” Fuentes said.
Mena and Fuentes say the couple has six children and about 15 grandkids. Many of them are holding vigil by their side.