SAN FRANCISCO—Three officers from the San Francisco Police Department Mission Station were acknowledge for their life-saving efforts to save a boy’s life in October 2016. Officers Raymond Fernandez, Nadia Mohamed, and Brandon Rock received honors from the San Francisco Fire Department Commendation at a ceremony.
On October 9, a young boy was shot while standing on a sidewalk corner. He suffered a leg wound and was bleeding when Officers Fernandez, Mohamed, and Rock arrived on scene at the intersection of Valencia and 26th Streets.
The officers spotted the 13-year-old victim and sprung into action. Fernandez and Rock applied pressure to the victim’s leg wound, while Mohamed began applying a “makeshift tourniquet above the injury,” until the department-issued tourniquet-known as the “Stretch-Wrap-And-Tuck Tourniquets” could be found, police said. Fernandez located the department-issued tourniquet and used it to stop the bleeding of the victim’s leg.
The officers stayed with the victim and secured the scene until San Francisco Fire Department paramedics arrived to take the 13-year-old boy to the San Francisco General Hospital. After undergoing emergency surgery, the young boy survived.
SFPD Acting Police Chief Toney Chaplin commented on the three officers, stating, “The officers’ first responder training and their timely application of the tourniquet were crucial components of the child’s survival.”
Stretch-Wrap-And-Tuck Tourniquets were first introduced in July 2014 by an Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant. Though officers have reportedly used the tourniquets on at least eight other occasions involving gunshot wounds, they are not yet considered standard equipment. The SFPD believes that the incident on October 9, and the other eight circumstances display a need for “these simple but effective devices.”
The three Mission Station officers have also been nominated for San Francisco Police Department’s “Life Saving Award.”
