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and i just want to confirm we're here
for the incident
on february the 4th 2021
and that was on a thursday where a new
mexico state police officer
was shot and killed yes sir okay
um were were you working that day i was
okay can you tell me about
just right before how you were notified
what information was given to you and
then what actions were taken
yeah so we're notified through central
dispatch
here they paid us out on our radios and
over our pa here
and we got a call for an
officer down west of aquila
um at that point we
didn't have i guess all of the
information there was a lot of
information coming in
and so
we kind of asked to give more
information when we when that's
available
through dispatch um and we've placed
native air on standby
native air 30 is based out of here in
dimming and so
given the nature of that call we wanted
to have them
on standby if needed that's a protocol
we request that through central dispatch
okay we went and route
to like i guess the dispatch location
and it was kind of unsure
of who was still on scene and like the
actual scene
scenario i guess that information was
being relayed through dispatch
but we knew that there was law
enforcement that was on their way
and so the ambulance is not the quickest
vehicle in the fleet so we were kind of
allowing for
for the law enforcement to to go past it
they're much faster than we are so
we just continued to going around we
hadn't been directed to stage or to do
anything we just were
just headed west of aquila
we were told that there was law
enforcement on scene
at a point we were unclear on which one
i
i believe that they we were told that
border patrol was on scene and they had
medical staff rendering aid but that was
all that we knew
we asked for where the victim had been
shot
if they knew that and if cpr was being
started um
it took a minute but dispatch was able
to tell us that he had multiple gunshot
wounds
and that there was no pulse at this time
that there was
law enforcement rendering made okay
and what else do you want us to keep
going yeah yeah
so we obviously were just in route
i guess it would be eastbound on i-10
um and at a point sheriff's officers or
somebody had
traffic stopped we moved past that and
we parked
the ambulance and got out to
i i don't know which law enforcement
agency was rendering it but there was
somebody that was rendering need
okay um you just know was law
enforcement i i just know that
that there was law enforcement we were
told they were law enforcement i don't
know that they were law enforcement we
were just told that they were law
enforcement
okay um our chiefs truck had also gone
in route
um and they were ahead of us um but got
there shortly before us
so as we got there we had
the chiefs that were there with us and
we got
all of our supplies and stuff down to
start rendering aid
to the officer
prior to that after kind of hearing a
little bit more dispatch information as
it was coming in we did go ahead and
launch native air
native air can do we can meet them at
the base
we can meet them at the hospital we can
launch them and have them do
an in-air standby or we can launch them
and have them land at like a
pre-designated
area we just essentially told them go in
the area
of west tequila and we'll give you more
when we get that
and we did end up eventually we landed
them on highway
native air was landed on the highway but
as we got unseen
the supplies that we get out and the
materials that we get out are just kind
of our standard
supplies we get everything that could be
necessary to work
on a patient that's involved in that
type of incident
so we get all that down cpr is being
performed
and then we kind of take over that they
can still assist us in some manner
but we kind of take over what goes on at
that point
okay
position wise
the officer was off to the i guess would
be the south end of the road
on the shoulder
his feet were south i guess or south ish
but his feet were facing south and his
head was facing north
okay um if i remember correctly he was
at a slight
like decline just because the shoulder
kind of
falls off that way so he was kind of at
a slight decline
when we got to him there okay
and what else um
i don't know exactly when it occurred
but
the officer's vest was was caught we
exposed the patient
so the officer's vest was cut off or at
least the front piece of the vest was
cut off
and the patient's exposed from my
recollection that was already done as i
was getting to the patient
the patient was already exposed and
there had already been some
i guess treatments performed like as the
cpr was going
there was some bandages that were placed
i say bandages it's like an occlusive
dressing over
some wounds that were there and cpr was
being performed
okay
we assessed the patient right away and
confirmed that the patient was
pulseless there was no breathing and
there was no pulse
we confirmed that through touch and also
through our life pack monitor that we
use
on the ambulance so we can connect the
pads and it gives us if there's a
cardiac rhythm or not
we also will confirm that with a touch
you know
pulse just check for a pulse
so once we confirm what's on scene we
continue with the cpr
and then manage the patient accordingly
so
preparations for the patient's airway
was assessed
we prepare
to take control of that airway and
breathe for the patient if we have to
start ivs and just go according to like
a cardiac protocol that like when
somebody's in cardiac arrest these are
the things that we do
and that's oftentimes cardiac monitoring
iv
access so that we can give some
medications
we were able to establish that at the
patient's arm and then
we were also able to get a secondary iv
site
it makes things a lot easier if you're
given medications and fluids to have
two sites that you can give medication
or fluids through so we were able to do
that
okay
um as that progresses
so do our treatments our treatments go
from
again i don't remember if it was being
done just prior to but i know that as
soon as we got there we have a bbm
which is our back valve mask and we can
start ventilating the patient and
breathing for the patient
typically we will position the patient
in as optimal of a position as you can
and you start bagging the patient
that was occurring so we're bagging the
patient
and as you continue your assessment if
oxygen saturations are not improving
there's other interventions that you can
you can start to perform
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one of those being an intubation where
you put a breathing tube down
the patient's trachea and then you're
able to breathe for the patient through
a tube that's clear
it's maintained it's free from
obstructions things like that
are you wanting to know like specifics
as far as the process for that or are
you wanting to just know like
yeah just the ems that was performed on
him and what you did
on scene with with the officer
um and if you don't mind i
i know you said when you arrived his uh
his chest was already exposed
as his vest was removed or the front
part of it was removed
were you able to view the gunshot wounds
that he sustained i believe so um
the scenes they're they're not optimal
right
but this isn't on a surgical table and
so you have a lot that's going on you
have
clothing you have bandages you have
blood you have all these things and so
you're able to visualize that the best
that you can um
but i wasn't gonna also go backwards and
undo um
like the chest heel that was put on i'm
not going to take that off to try and
see if i uncover
another wound i'm going to look and see
if if that's working i'm going to leave
it
this is working i'm going to leave it
and some of those had already been
placed yeah
so i was able to visualize where i
assumed that there was penetrating
trauma to the thorax
and i was able to see multiple locations
where those had been placed where was it
at
left chest okay
i believe there was two penetrating
injuries to the left chest
two okay i believe there was one
right chest or or very close to the
midline but
right right sided that there was also a
bandage placed
okay and then i believe that there was
also a head injury that was a
penetrating head injury as well
as far as our other assessment um of the
patient
like extremities and things like that
you kind of focus on on the injuries
that are that are most
important at that point everything else
appeared
as far as like a quick assessment
appeared to be like intact
you know at that point if you've got
broken bones so
fingers or things like that they kind of
take a back seat to the immediate
life threat problem which at that point
there were life threats present so those
are the
the issues that we determined to fix
okay
all right um so
as you kind of assess that patient
that's what you're looking for right
you're saying where where are these
injuries and what do we do to fix them
or mitigate the problems that are there
so the penetrating traumas that were
there had already been
inclusive dressings have been placed
over them we were continuing cpr
and we kind of focused on the the
medication side
of of the medications that we need to
give or fluids that we need to give
and access to that and then controlling
the airway
airways can be difficult especially in
trauma cases because
you can have things like secretions
vomitus blood or anything like that that
will obstruct the patient's airway
so we also have a suction unit that's
portable that we can take and suction
that airway so that we can
facilitate a little bit better
ventilation for the patient
which we had out and we were using
um native air was being landed kind of
as all this is
is happening and native air landed in a
fair a fairly close proximity to us
on eastbound i-10
so they landed in the eastbound lanes
okay
okay i mean exactly as far as like where
the mile marker
that's okay but they landed in the
eastbound lanes
and they have medical personnel that are
critical care
um like paramedic and a nurse that are
there and at that point they can
assist us or we can assist them in
whatever interventions we need
for the patient so as we were
managing the patient's airway
and continuing the cpr breathing for the
patient
we sought to take over the patient's
airway
and a couple of attempts were made to
take over the patient's airway
and start to ventilate that patient
through those
um tubes and
native air assisted in doing that i was
able to take over the patient's airway
with their equipment
um and so we were successfully able to
ventilate the patient and we secure that
airway from anything else that could
obstruct it
um i don't know if you're familiar with
like the tubes that are put down they
have a little balloon on the end
i know yeah so when you when you put
that that tube down you can basically
make a clean clear path for the air to
go which is what you want you don't want
any of the blood or anything
else to be able to obstruct it so once
you're able to get that
then then you start managing like how
are we breathing for them
how much air we're giving them and where
that air is going
was any of that working on him
as far as the action yes
was it changing how the patient was
their outcome or changing anything with
the patient
minimal minimal changes what do you mean
by that minimal
as far as like you can see chest rise
and fall right like if you're bagging
somebody you can see their chest rise
and fall
so you're obviously giving ventilations
that work but whether that patient is
able to
exchange the oxygen that you're giving
them it's a it's a minimal thing at that
point if the heart's not beating okay um
so
that's where it's it the interventions
that we're performing are
being performed the way that they're
supposed to be the body's failure to
exchange that oxygen
that's situations that are out of our
control we just have to perform the
action
and we're trying to assist that right
like through cpr
we're trying to to flow the blood so
that the body can exchange that oxygen
but cpr is is is never going to be as
efficient as the heart actually doing
the work
on its own okay if that makes yes
that makes sense um so as we're
performing these
we're reassessing to make sure that our
air is going into the right places
and bagging is supposed to be fairly
fairly easy as far as you're supposed to
be able to move that air with like
little resistance
and we started to note some resistance
which can mean
a few things but there's
some interventions that we can perform
to try and aid in that
and those were performed so
it's a a needle decompression
which basically means if there's air
which can often occur with penetrating
trauma to the
to the thorax if there's air that gets
on top of the lungs it prevents those
lungs from filling up
um there's more air outside the lung
than inside okay and it creates pressure
and it won't allow the lung to inflate
which becomes a problem and so
one of the fixes that you can do for
that is you take a
needle and you push it through the chest
wall and that allows the air that's
outside of the lung to escape
and so that was performed twice
in two appropriate locations that was
performed
and also with very minimal
change in that um
okay
we continued cpr um we continued to
to to bag the patient a lot of this is
going on at the same time
or very close in that timeline
but as we're looking at our monitor
we can see that there was no changes
made in cardiac rhythm
there's no changes where he tries to
breathe on his own there's no changes
that are occurring
and medical control was contacted
just to see if there was any other
suggestions
or anything else that can be attempted
or tried
it's kind of like a i guess
you can talk to a physician that's in
the er and
say hey is there anything else that we
can do
and he advised that we discontinued cpr
at that point and once that was stated
the phone to to make that call in the
ambulance so
when you come back and you say hey we've
got the order from the doctor to
discontinue cpr
um that is
you know you you stop cpr yeah but once
the cpr stopped
it kind of becomes a different
scene i guess and the fact that
before you know you're you're cutting
clothes off and you're you're doing all
the the things necessary to treat the
patient once you discontinue the cpr
especially in a situation like this we
kind of take a lot of extra care to make
sure that we
preserve anything that's on the scene
that
we leave our interventions we don't just
like
take everything out we kind of leave him
as he was
and that's to assist when omai gets
there or investigative teams
we left him in the position that we
found him after we're treating him
obviously our priority is him but once
the discontinued
order was given that's kind of like
the point where we take that step back
and we get our materials we get our
things
our machines or whatever like that and
and we really try to it turns into
preserving that scene
okay
i think that's about
yeah as far as timeline was okay
thank you so you said the location was
west of aquila do you remember the mall
marker
uh not precisely and and dispatch didn't
give us a mile marker we were just
told west of aquila okay
if you don't know it's okay yeah i don't
know okay we were just told west of
aquila and we knew that that was going
to
be a scene that was going to be easy to
find we were right he was on the highway
okay um so i know
you described the position that he the
officer was laying in what else did you
see
around him um as far as like where he
yeah like were there
other agencies uh were they already
working on him by the time
yes ma'am okay do you remember who was
working on him before
i don't i don't remember the the
specific agencies it wasn't really my
like a dispatch had voiced at one point
that it was border patrol
okay so i just kind of made the
assumption that border patrol
okay um was there um
once we got to the patient our focus is
him i really don't care who else is
there
but we knew state police was going to be
showing up we knew that other officers
were going to be showing up
um but i i know that there we were told
border patrol had um
either they said either agents or
medical staff
okay performing and and so we at that
point assumed we know border patrol's
medical staff it's like an emt
uh we know it's not like a surgeon
that's there you know working for border
patrol so
we assumed that it was there and then
around him um
we had somewhere in his vicinity was the
front of the vest it was kind of taken
off of him so that they could expose
and just kind of place to the side okay
um
i know that there was
trying to think of anything else there
was a
shell casing that was noted on
it was on the shoulder on the same i
guess
we're talking about the south side like
eastbound shoulder
there was some sort of a shell casing
that was noted and
are you able to tell like what kind of
casing was it a long casing short
longer casing okay
and then there was a what i assume
there was something that looked like a
bullet
what do you mean where it was also on
the shoulder a bullet
yeah or a fragment or something that
that was
looked like a piece of like lead or
brass
or something that would have was it near
the officer or was it it was on the
shoulder
i couldn't tell you the exact location
but i know that when as we stepped back
and you kind of look around make sure
you're not going to step on anything or
anyone there was a shell casing and then
there was like
a bullet and when i say bullet i mean a
bullet without the casing
okay thank you for clarifying that
anything else um not to my recollection
like i said
like there you know there was medical
supplies and
shears or stuff like that but nothing
that was noted
okay all right interview concluded at 10
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