San Antonio – A San Antonio woman is hoping her uncle’s story reminds others not to drive drunk after his leg was severed by an alleged intoxicated driver.
Jose Martines, 42, was visiting his family from Lubbock when the crash happened.
“He and my grandma were visiting,” said Saira Martines, the victim’s niece. “They got here around six and we went out to eat. He came back home and I went to Walmart and then I got a call from my sister who was crying and saying an accident had happened.”
She said she rushed home to a shocking sight to see.
“I saw him,” she said. “He was already sitting down and he couldn’t take the pain anymore. That is when the ambulance took him and everything.”
San Antonio police said Jorge Reyes, 27, was the driver behind the wheel.
They said while Jose Martines was unloading things out of his trunk, Reyes lost control and crashed right in the back of Jose Martines’s car.
The collision crushed Jose Martines between both vehicles.
“I was so angry,” Martines said. “I was screaming at him and he had the guts to say, ‘You can’t judge me!’”
Reyes failed a sobriety test, authorities alleged, which landed him in handcuffs for intoxication assault.
“That doesn’t bring my tio’s leg back. I could understand if it was just an accident, but he was really intoxicated,” Saira Martines said. “I don’t think I would be able to forgive him, and neither could my uncle.”
At this time, her uncle is still in the ICU after undergoing emergency surgeries.
“He is doing OK right now,” she said. “He hasn’t been awake since so we haven’t talked to him since that day. They are hoping to wake him up tomorrow.”
Without his leg, life will be very challenging for Jose Martines as he was the caregiver for his mother for a living.
“He takes care of her, he drives her places, he is there when she is sick,” Saira Martines said. “It is going to be really hard. It is really hard for her right now.”
She said until her uncle gets better, they will be staying with her and her children.
Saira Martines had this message for others.
“Don’t drive if you know you are on drugs or drinking,” she said. “It can change other people’s lives. He’s in prison but he is doing fine. My uncle’s life has changed. We don’t know how he is going to react when he wakes up after everything happened to him.”
The family is planning a future fundraiser for Jose Martines to raise money to help during his recovery process.
Reyes is still in the Bexar County Jail for intoxication assault, records showed. His bond is set at $25,000.