Page 33 - August 2017

The LEMART Difference
O cer Robert Gleich practices applying a tourniquet to his partner, Jeremi- ah Pentek. The duo used its LEMAR training earlier this year to aid a fellow o cer who had been shot in the hand.
Law Enforcement Medical and Rescue
Training is making such a profound impact
in helping gunshot victims that every officer
should take time to get this vital instruction
n BY DAN CAMPANA
n PHOTOS BY JAMES PINTO
Officer Aura Bernson feared the worst on that May 2 night.
Around 9 p.m., Bernson and her partner had been fol- lowing a second pair of officers but lost track of that pair’s van when it made an abrupt turn near 47th Street and Ra- cine Avenue to go after suspects they had under surveil- lance. That’s when the radio blew up with the call that an officer had been shot.
Chicago Police Officer Colin Ryan, only two-and-a- half years on the job, was driving the van when assailants opened fire with a rifle on him and his partner.
“I knew I had been shot a number of times, I didn’t know how many,” Ryan recalled of the May shooting, describing how he kept his head down while continuing to navigate the van. “If I stop driving, we’re dead.”
He felt something hit his back. Then in the hip. Then his left arm.
“The two in the arm almost knocked me completely off the seat. The only thing that held me on was that I just had a really good grip on the steering wheel,” Ryan explained, remembering how he thought to himself, “I’m not dying here at 43rd and Ashland.”
Ryan and his partner returned fire before the suspects took off. Somehow, Ryan managed to re-holster his weap- on, hit the brakes, park the van and get out.
“I took a look at the van and just saw my blood through- out. This is like something you see in the movies. This isn’t like a real-life thing,” Ryan said of what went through his
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