Gonzalo Garcia Jr., an associate professor of educational administration at Texas A&M, died at the age of 62 Wednesday morning at the College Station Medical Center.

Doctors removed Garcia from life support at 9:45 a.m., and he was pronounced dead. Garcia was hospitalized Tuesday after suffering serious injuries in a car accident when his car was struck by a Ford F-150 pickup at the 1600 block of Earl Rudder Freeway.

"He was just so incredibly hurt during the car wreck," Melissa Purl, director of marketing at the College Station Medical Center said. "He put up a good fight, but it was just a really, really, awful wreck. I saw the picture of the wreck last night, and it was awful."

Purl said the number of calls she received inquiring about Garcia's condition is testament to how admired he is.

"He must've been a wonderful human being," Purl said. "His students must just be bereaved without him."

Derek Barnes, a senior technology management major, grew up with Garcia's children and took his educational statistics class. Garcia found a way to make the learning process fun and easy, even though his classes were difficult, Barnes said.

"Every time you needed extra help he would always welcome you to his office and make sure you understood everything," Barnes said. "He was a very good man and a very good professor."

Garcia taught graduate and undergraduate classes at A&M and taught outside the university as well, said Larry Dooley, program chair for Human Resource Development.

"He's been around a lot and has been able to see the changes in how education is taught and has been part of it as well," Dooley said. "I know a lot of students from different departments came to him for help with their projects or dissertations."

Dooley, program chair of Garcia's program, said Garcia's death was a shock.

"It's going to be difficult to us as a faculty," he said. "There's certainly no way to replace a person ... It doesn't feel like enough time has passed for the students or faculty to process what happened."

The department has asked Walt Stenning, a retired A&M professor and close friend to Garcia, to take on Garcia's classes for the remainder of the semester.

"Gonzalo was one of those people who didn't have any enemies," Dooley said. "Everybody liked him. He's a great guy."

The accident is still under investigation, said Officer Gary Southerland of the College Station Police Department (CSPD).

"They still haven't done the reconstruction of the accident yet," Southerland said. "They started it that day and should be done the morning of April 2. They'll have that part of the freeway closed from about 7 a.m. until 10:30 a.m."

At the reconstruction, CSPD will take measurements and hope to be able to learn more about some of the causes and effects, he said.

"They'll wait before the investigation is complete before we'll know whether charges will be pressed or not," he said.

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