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.