An Army veteran who clawed his way out of PTSD and rebuilt a joyful life by the ocean collapsed and died moments after finishing a half-marathon in San Diego — telling his mother only two days before that he secretly planned to marry the woman he loved.
Scottie Williams, 28, had crossed the finish line of the Silver Strand Veterans Day Half Marathon on Sunday when he suddenly crumpled near a water station.
On-site medics worked frantically to revive him, performing CPR for what a doctor later told his mother was “an hour and a half,” but he never regained a pulse.
His mother, Katherine Yglesias-Herrera, 59, speaking through tears from her home in Ridgecrest, Calif., told The Post she still cannot comprehend how her healthy, athletic son, who completed several half-marathons before Sunday’s race, could die in an instant.
“Twenty-eight years old…makes no sense,” Yglesias-Herrera said by phone on Friday.
Yglesias-Herrera said she was told her son appeared perfectly fine when she spoke to him through FaceTime two days before he crossed the finish line. His girlfriend, Bree Rivera, had been waiting for him at the race.
“She said that he passed the finish line, and she watched him walk over by the water station, and somebody watched him just … collapse … almost immediately after the race,” Yglesias-Herrera recalled.
She told The Post that an autopsy has been completed, but the family won’t know the results for months. She said she has no answers — only questions.
“I’ve ran every scenario through my head,” Yglesias-Herrera said.
“Why? … Such a good asset to this world. Why?”
She described their final FaceTime call two days before his death, saying, “He walked me around, showed me his new apartment, his new garage.”
Yglesias-Herrera said he even stepped outside and “showed me all his plants and showed me his bedroom and his bathroom and his gym.”
Williams had been working on a memorial for his father, who died in August after succumbing to cirrhosis of the liver.
“His dad passed away in August, and he was building his dad’s urn in his garage,” she said. As she recalled their last conversation, she broke down in tears.
“God just must have needed him more than I did,” she said, overcome with emotion.
On Thursday, Williams’ body was escorted home to Ridgecrest by police and local veterans, with residents lining the streets waving American flags.
“This town … has been nothing but amazing for him,” his mother said.
She said the police, veterans and locals lined the streets with flags when his body was brought home.
The family is now raising money for Williams’ funeral on GoFundMe. As of Friday night, $20,448 had been raised toward a $26,000 goal.
Williams enlisted in the Army at 17, immediately after graduating from Burroughs High School in 2015.
He served in Korea and Syria as a transport driver, ferrying equipment and troops in massive military vehicles.
He had dreamed of joining the military since childhood.
“He always talked about joining the military since he was, like, in third grade,” Yglesias-Herrera said.
“My dad was in the Army. I was in the air force,” she said. “He loved guns and knives … He loved camping, playing outside, playing in dirt, playing with spiders, playing with lizards, playing with snakes.”
But when he returned from Syria, she said she noticed something different about her son.
When asked if he suffered from PTSD, Yglesias-Herrera replied, “Yes, he did.”
“He never … talked to me about it,” she said. “I would find him crying sometimes, and I would sit with him and hug him and tell him, like, ‘Son, what’s going on?’ And he would tell me, ‘I don’t know, Mom, I don’t know.’”
She recalled one of the first moments she realized her son was struggling after returning home from Syria.
“I remember when he first came home and he went to Walmart and he came home and he was super like, like breathing heavy, taking deep breaths,” she said.
“And I said, ‘Son, what’s going on?’ And he just said that he felt like everybody was staring at him, like struggling, I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t himself.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs eventually rated him 80% disabled for PTSD. He resisted therapy at first, Yglesias-Herrera said, but later agreed to talk to someone — though he refused medication.
“He pretty much knew what he needed to do to heal himself,” she said. “Actually did a pretty great job doing this.”
After the Army, Williams built a camper on the back of his truck and lived in it while working at a ski resort in Mammoth Lakes, Calif.
He showered at the gym, worked the ski lift and spent his days outdoors.
Then he moved to San Diego — and everything changed.
“San Diego…was the best thing that he ever did because he just, he healed himself slowly,” his mother said.
“He lived life to his fullest, and he would run these marathons.”
It was in San Diego that he met his girlfriend, Rivera. Yglesias-Herrera told The Post that her son was talking about a future with her.
“Him and his girlfriend had just gotten a bigger apartment and moved in together. And he told me, she’s struggling a little bit [to make ends meet] or whatever. He’s like, ‘You know, I just don’t want her to struggle. I’ll just take care of her’.”
“And I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. I’m just going to secret marry her. I think I’m just going to pick up and secret marry her.’”
“I said, ‘Do it.’”
“Right now in his life, he was the happiest,” Yglesias-Herrera said. “He had his new little apartment by the beach… little apartment, perfect little girlfriend, smiling, happy.”
“He had his little apartment by the beach. His girlfriend made him so happy.”
Williams’ funeral is scheduled for next weekend in Ridgecrest.
Asked what she wants the world to know about her late son, Yglesias-Herrera paused — and then spoke through tears.
“He was amazing,” she said.
“One of the best people I know. My girls always said I loved him so much — I love all my kids the same.”
“But he was … he was something more …”
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