Three weeks out of the academy, Chicago Police Department probationary officers Ravyn Morgan and Brendan Lyons were not expecting to be confronted with such a tough situation.
On June 2, the officers responded to a call of a child who was bleeding after cutting his arm on a fence. By the amount of blood the child had lost, the officers feared he had severed an artery and decided to apply a tourniquet to stem the flow.
“It was very real,” Morgan said. “When we pulled up on the scene, I didn’t know how bad the situation was but when we saw the amount of blood on the ground and on the stairs, we knew it was serious.”
Morgan and Lyons and Field Training Officer Sergio Corona were honored Tuesday by the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation for helping save the life of the 8-year-old boy.
“It can be very chaotic outside of the academy,” Lyons said. “People are panicking, and so we have to rely on our training to guide us through.”
Lyons applied the tourniquet while Morgan worked to calm the family and assure them all would be well. Corona went back to the street to meet the ambulance and plan the quickest route to the nearest trauma center.
“I felt prepared to handle it. I just wanted to make sure the little boy was calm and to let him know that he would be OK,” Morgan said.
After Chicago Fire Department paramedics arrived and loaded the boy into the ambulance, the officers led the ambulance to Lutheran General Hospital.
Paramedics and hospital staff told the officers the boy had cut an artery and probably would have died if the tourniquet had not been used on his arm.
“These young officers here were very calm, very professional, and I really did not have to say too much. They adapted fast,” Corona said.
The boy has been released from the hospital.
“I was glad that we could be of service to the family and the community,” Lyons said.
