An officer saved the life of a man shot in the leg. A Wichita hospital honored him

A police officer saved the life of a man who had been shot when he put a tourniquet on his leg, a Wichita doctor said.

Officer Andrew Gonzales was responding to an early morning shooting call in February in the 700 block of South Main when he found an incoherent man with gunshot wounds to both legs, Officer Charley Davidson said on Wednesday. One wound was bleeding profusely, but paramedics were not yet at the scene.

"It didn't hit the absolute main blood vessel, the common femoral, but it hit one coming off that generally I would say he would have bled to death before he made it to the hospital," said Jim Haan, medical trauma director for Via Christi Hospitals.

Even if he made it to the hospital, he could have died on the operating table because of how much blood he had lost, Haan said.

The man needed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, but Haan said they aren't standard issue for Wichita police officers.

Gonzales, who is also an infantryman in the Kansas Army National Guard, had a tourniquet similar to his military-issue one in his personal trauma kit.

"I went into almost like an auto-pilot-type mode where I placed the tourniquet on there and it just kind of felt like I was doing my job," Gonzales said. "I talked to the guy all the way to the hospital and followed him into the (operating room)."

"This morning I learned that had I not done that he would have died," he said. "It's just one of those things that I felt like I was doing my job. I'm glad that I was there to help and had the right equipment, the right training and the right mindset."

Haan said Gonzales saved a life and presented him with a certificate of recognition on Wednesday, and Via Christi Hospitals gave the Wichita Police Department 100 "stop the bleed" kits.

"Bleeding to death is still the No. 1 killer of of people who never make it to a hospital and never see a paramedic," Haan said, adding that a person can bleed to death in 3 to 5 minutes.

Police previously said that on Feb. 25, officers were called to the Hotel at WaterWalk. A 23-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds was found lying between two buildings and was taken to a hospital in serious condition. Police said the shooting was gang-related.

Gonzales said he did not know about his award until Wednesday morning.

"Officer Gonzales helped save a life through his heroic actions," Davidson said

In addition to the 100 kits for Wichita police, Via Christi Hospitals has used funding from the Children's Miracle Network to provide 250 "stop the bleed" kits to individuals and organizations in the area that go through their training, Haan said.

Tourniquets aren't just for shooting victims, he said, as they can save the lives of farmers, industrial workers and people in crashes.

"Somebody over at Spirit that has a big piece of metal come in and slice their arm halfway through and they start to bleed to death, it still takes time for EMS to come," Haan said. "There's still going to be farmers that accidentally get their arm pulled into an auger and have their arm ripped off. One of these (kits) could save their life because they could very easily bleed to death before I ever see them."

"Don't use a belt as a tourniquet," he added. "It looks good in movies, but it doesn't work very well."

The training includes teaching people how to provide life-saving care, such as putting on a tourniquet and deep-packing a wound, Haan said.

The kits and training are partially in response to mass shootings across the country and in Kansas.

Exactly two years before the day Gonzales responded to the shooting on South Main, Haan was called in to treat victims of the shooting at Excel Industries in Hesston.

Haan said he and others at Via Christi Hospitals treated seven people that night while another four were treated at Wesley Medical Center. Three more were treated in Newton, where their facilities went into lockdown, he said.

Three people died at the scene on Feb. 25, 2016.

Tourniquets may or may not have saved their lives, Haan said. Police have to secure a scene before paramedics are allowed to go in.

"I know the people I took care of, some of them would have benefited from a tourniquet," Haan said. "Thank God they made it, but they didn't make it very well."

Excel employee Cedric Ford used an AK-47 and a handgun in the shooting before he was shot and killed by Hesston Police Chief Doug Schroeder.

"It doesn't sound very Christian, but I am really grateful for that person that actually shot that shooter," Haan said. "... Even though that's a tragedy, we could have been talking about 200 people shot, and that could have overwhelmed our system, and that really would have made a huge difference if some of those people knew how to put on a tourniquet and physically had a tourniquet to put on."

This story was originally published April 5, 2018 at 1:48 PM with the headline "An officer saved the life of a man shot in the leg. A Wichita hospital honored him."