SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A San Diego Police officer who survived a crash in Clairemont said the incident that claimed the life of his partner still doesn’t feel real.
Months after the Aug. 26 crash that killed SDPD Officer Austin Machitar, a memorial remains in place on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard.
Machitar’s partner, Officer Zach Martinez, said he does not remember anything from the day of the crash.
“It feels like you're watching the news, and you see something else that had happened to someone else … you're like, ‘Wow, that's really sad.’ And it's super difficult to … put together that I was the one in that, I was the one in that passenger seat and I lost my partner that day,” Martinez said as he recalled the day that a vehicle hit their patrol car.
The months-old memorial and a black mourning band both hold the memories of Machitar.
“I know it might be kind of a sensitive question but is there anything you wish you would have said to him before he passed?” reporter Ava Kershner asked.
“I wish I would have said ‘thank you’ again because he had taught me a lot,” said Martinez.
Martinez continues to grieve while recovering from a broken neck and severe burns from the collision.
He described the moments after being ejected from their patrol car after it was broadsided by a vehicle going 90 miles per hour.
“I remember there was a period in which I now know is my coma; it was like a mesh of dark and light. I said a prayer. At the end of the prayer, I woke up and my mom was right next to me,” said Martinez.
That prayer was for a second chance, which is now his reality.
“So, when I first woke up in the coma, I was in, I was obviously delusional. I mean, as anyone would be. My first thought was, ‘I don't ever want to be a police officer again, ‘and I had the quick reminder to like, not myself, no one told me anything, but to myself, that was my childhood dream. I've always wanted to be a police officer since I was a little kid. I can't just give up on a dream because something gets hard. And so I did that and here we are. I'm truly grateful to be able to get another chance to do it again,” said Martinez.
Martinez’s first day back on patrol was Saturday.
