Zumba instructor recounts horror of being wounded in Chicago mass shooting
CHICAGO (CBS) - One of the four people shot after a Zumba class this week in the Back of the Yards neighborhood shared Wednesday night what happened during the chaos two nights earlier.
Zumba instructor Fernando Garza said he was the special guest invited to the studio for a Mexican Independence Day class—and the class was coming to an end when bullets came flying through the fitness studio at 51st and Laflin streets around 8:30 p.m. Monday.
On Wednesday night, Garza—with his hospital band on and the support of his parents—filed a report at the Englewood (7th) Chicago Police district just days after he was shot.
"Everybody got to the ground," Garza said. "I felt the shot behind my back."
Surveillance video showed the chaos inside the Body Factory Nutrition Zumba studio, at 1500 W. 51st St., where there were still bullet holes 48 hours later. Garza was teaching there Monday night as the bullets from the street broke through the windows.
Garza himself was hit, along with two other adults and a 13-year-old girl who lives with Down syndrome.
"I saw the mom with the little girl. I'm a father. I'm a single father. My daughter is 9," said Garza.
Garza's bandages two nights later showed the path of the bullet—as it grazed his shoulder, sliced a part of his neck, and exited.
"I was bleeding a lot from my head," he said. "I just felt something warm—super hot in the back of my head and shoulder."
The University of Chicago Medical Center, Garza said the doctors said he was reborn.
"It could have either hit my spinal cord, be paralyzed, or I could just be dead," he said.
Garza said Zumba is his outlet—a way to spread joy—and he vows to get back to class when he is recovered.
"I want to be back and spread the joy again, and show that even if tragedy happens, when life gives you a chance at life, there's a reason," he said.
Garza said the 13-year-old girl who was shot has been released from the hospital.
Chicago Police late Wednesday said no arrests had been made.
