By the time Goodwin reached Melinda, her situation was critical. She was rapidly losing blood, and a makeshift belt someone had tied around her leg wasn’t enough to stop the arterial bleeding. She was slipping into unconsciousness.
“The belt wasn’t stopping the arterial bleed,” Goodwin later said. “There wasn’t time to wait.”
Drawing on his advanced medical training, he applied a combat tourniquet to stem the bleeding. But the injuries were extensive. He packed a second wound with gauze and carefully wrapped what remained of her severed leg to prevent further blood loss — and to preserve any chance that surgeons could later reattach it. All of this he did while kneeling on the asphalt, surrounded by broken glass, debris, and the constant danger of passing traffic.
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