WORCESTER – Enrique Delgado-Garcia never got a chance to participate in the full pomp and circumstance associated with becoming a state police trooper. He was a month away from graduation from the state police academy when he died after falling unconscious during a training exercise on Sept. 12.
Delgado-Garcia, 25, got a full send-off on Saturday, with hundreds of mourners in attendance for a ceremony outside Mercadante Funeral Home & Chapel, before Delgado-Garcia was brought to Notre Dame Cemetery to be laid to rest.
The early morning fog around Worcester lifted as the ceremony began and Delgado-Garcia’s flag-drapped casket was wheeled outside, with more than 100 police officers in honor guards from different first responders standing at attention. Friends and family watched as the Massachusetts State Police Pipes and Drums played Amazing Grace, and the American flag was ceremonially folded and handed to Delgado-Garcia’s immediate family.
“He genuinely wanted to make a difference,” Caroline Root, a friend of Delgado-Garcia’s, said after the ceremony. “It is an incredible loss for his friends, his family, but also for our entire community and the world. ”