Paramedics Credit Training In Saving Officer's Life After Shooting

DENVER (CBS4) - It only took 11 minutes for the paramedics who found Denver Police Officer Tony Lopez Jr. with gunshot wounds to get him to the surgeon for life-saving surgery.

The paramedics first to arrive to help Lopez on Tuesday talked about how they worked quickly to save his life on Tuesday afternoon. They credit training as what helped save his life.

"I would say what saved his life is the training that we go through, definitely," said Courtney Strong, a paramedic with Denver Health Medical Center.

Lopez was making a "routine traffic stop" near 37th Avenue and Federal Boulevard when a suspect from that vehicle opened fire and sped off. Lopez was shot multiple times in the arms and legs. The suspect was shot in the ankle. The suspect, who has not been identified, was arrested after speeding off and allegedly committing a carjacking.

Police said a person of interest wanted in connection to the shooting, Melinda Espinoza, turned herself into police on Wednesday afternoon.

Strong said that when they arrived there was a lot of blood surrounding Lopez.

"I noticed initially that he had a tourniquet placed on one of his legs, I believe by one of the police officers. It is the same kind of tourniquet we use here at Denver Health so it was probably issued to them, is what we're thinking. It was placed correctly and it had stopped a lot of that blood loss," said Strong. "The tourniquet was placed and I located the other significant injury, two gunshot wounds to his leg and placed the tourniquet above those."

When asked how critical those first moments are, Strong replied, "Very critical. You can bleed out from a wound in three minutes. So finding that wound and treating that wound is 100 percent what you need to do right then and there. All that matters at that moment is finding the wound and stopping the bleeding."

Strong talked about how different it is when the patient is a man or woman in uniform, "One hundred percent. They are our brothers, our sisters. And so we see them as family and we treat them as such."

Paramedic Dustin Morgan was with Strong during the call. He said those types of calls can be difficult.

"As a paramedic you kind of disconnect yourself emotionally from calls initially when you respond to a scene because you kind of have to. So you collect yourself, disconnect yourself emotionally, focus on the tasks at hand taking care of an emergency situation and stabilizing the patient and then later on, after the call sometimes it takes a minute and take a deep breath," said Morgan.

Bobby Putnam, the All Hazards Training Program Coordinator with Denver Paramedics, talked about how the technology with tourniquets has changed in the past 45 years.

"For many years tourniquets were taboo, if you will, because they weren't being used properly and we weren't using the right type of tourniquets. That started to transition because of research and everything that was put forth to determine, should we use them again, has evolved very well," said Putnam.

"At this point we use the CAT tourniquet at Denver Health. It's designed for use on a frequent basis. The width of the tourniquet, that's a big, important part. The initial tourniquets that were issued in the Vietnam war were essentially belts, for lack of a better term, they were nylon belts, they weren't very effective, they weren't able to keep them tight and they weren't being placed properly.

"So the evolution has been the training, where to place the tourniquet, how to place the tourniquet, what type of tourniquet to place, and right now you can place a tourniquet like this for up to six hours before the patient will see significant damage to the limb that you're actually applying the tourniquet to."

There is a specific class dedicated to training first responders to similar situations called Tactical Casualty Care for Law Enforcement and First Responders.

Putnam said, "These guys did a phenomenal job. They did what they're trained to do here. I think it would have been a much different outcome without that kind of teamwork."

When asked what she would say to Lopez, Strong replied, "That he's very brave… very, very brave. And thank you for your service."

"We want him to get better, get back out there, we rely on the police to make our jobs safer every day. We couldn't do our jobs without them," said Morgan.

The Lopez family released this statement on Wednesday afternoon:

We greatly appreciate the outpouring of support from Mayor Hancock, Chief White, Deputy Chief Quinones, Tony Junior's fellow officers, the Denver Police Foundation and the community. Tony Jr. remains in critical condition with a long road ahead to a full recovery. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.