Jesus Aguilar (right), Burger King employee, serves a customer his breakfast. BEST Opportunities job coach Angelika Felix was coaching Aguilar on his second day of work after an accident resulted in the amputation of his right arm.
“He was that way before the accident, and now, to see that his spirit hasn’t changed one iota, despite his disability, is just amazing. It’s just medicine for the soul,” said Lynn Thompson, Fort Irwin Exchange general manager.
That’s how Thompson described Jesus Aguilar, who returned to work at Fort Irwin’s Burger King restaurant on March 12.
Aguilar was the most seriously hurt of the two Burger King employees injured when their Victor Valley Transit Authority commuter bus collided with a parked truck about 10 minutes from the main gate, June 2. The accident injured seven passengers and the driver, and also killed Fort Irwin employee Dail Keiper.
Aguilar said he was asleep on the bus when the accident happened.
Aguilar was treated at a hospital in Loma Linda, Calif., for the next seven days, where his right arm had to be amputated. He then moved to a wound-care facility in Apple Valley for five months, including stints in a hyperbaric chamber for three months, to speed up the healing, and more surgery through December, to remove wound tissue that wouldn’t heal. In November, Aguilar finally returned to Barstow, to recover at home.
On the morning of the accident, Thompson was in Las Vegas, when she got the calls on her cell phone that two of her employees were hurt. Thompson was at the airport, waiting to pick up her daughter and grand-daughter and to take them on some tours there.
Helping Aguilar ease back into work are not only his fellow employees and managers, but a job coach from BEST Opportunities, a Barstow non-profit agency that also mentors other Barstow-area residents working on post and other areas near Barstow.
So were the customers, said Thomas.
“I was speaking to a guest in the dining room this morning, and he said that when he walked in and saw Jesus, the first thing Jesus asked him was if he wanted his coffee with two cups of creamer, one packet of sugar … He remembers his customers,” Thomas said.
It’s such customer care that made Aguilar the top employee in military sales as a drive-through cashier at Burger King, said Bell.
Aguilar, who grew up in Hinkley but recently moved to Barstow, still takes the bus to work, getting on the VVTA bus at the stop near the Barstow cemetery at 4:20 a.m.