When Carmen Rodriguez saw the video of her husband at Tampa International Airport, her heart sank.
“My heart just came to my throat. I can’t stop shaking,” said Rodriguez.
“I haven’t stopped shaking since then.”
Wednesday night, Ralph Rodriguez-Hernandez became angry when his plane didn’t show up.
Another passenger in the terminal pulled out his phone and captured the 36-year-old pulling off his pants and yelling that he didn’t have a bomb.
When airport police showed up, the video shows Rodriguez-Hernandez kicking one of the officers before being taken away.
Carmen Rodriguez blames her husband’s actions on PTSD. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 16 years before recently retiring.
In that 16 years, he deployed six times.
Carmen witnessed the man she loved slowly fade.
“He completely changed, like, how he presents himself. You can see it in his eyes,” said Rodriguez.
“He’s not here. He’s not where he’s at. He’s just thinking about what he went through over there. He told me everything. He told me what he did, what he saw. It’s horrible.”
Rodriguez-Hernandez arrived at the airport with his emotional support dog, a rottweiler named Dax, prepared to board a flight bound for Puerto Rico.
He had planned to take the trip with his wife, but pushed up his departure date.
He told her he needed to spend some time with his family.
She felt it might help his PTSD to be back at his parents home in his home town.
She knew he would return to her and their three children, but she didn’t know when.
Then, hours after she dropped him off at the airport, there was a knock at her front door. That’s how she learned her husband had been arrested.
Dax was still at the Tampa International Airport Police Department.
Carmen said what’s made matters worse is the comments people are making on social media.
Some are joking that he must have been on drugs. Others are commenting that maybe he hadn’t taken his meds.
She hopes everyone who was poking fun realizes this is a man who spent 16 years fighting for our country. A man she fell in love with in high school, married and had three children with. A man who she can’t even go to see a movie with, because of his military experiences.
Even a trip to the grocery store is a challenge.
“He doesn’t like to be boxed in, in traffic. He thinks they’re chasing him or trying to kill him or something,” said Rodriguez. “He can’t see bags on the road, he thinks they’re bombs.”
She’s now hopeful his arrest will force him to get the help she’s been begging him to get for some time now.
He’s facing a number of serious charges, including aggravated assault, resisting an officer with violence and escape while transporting.
He’s being held in jail without bond pending a mental evaluation.
Carmen is praying this will be the beginning of his recovery.
“I hope with this, what happened, it will click with him,” said Rodriguez. “And he’ll be able to say, ‘I need help. I really need help.'”
