LAS VEGAS — An AMR paramedic is being credited with stopping an attack on a man who was being stabbed.
Paramedic Anthony Brown and his partner were responding to a non-emergency call when they saw two men lying in the road, FOX5 reports. Brown pulled over, got out of the ambulance, and used the vehicle’s headlights to see that a large man was standing over another man and stabbing him repeatedly with a large knife in the abdomen.
“I decided I could live with trying to stop this and possibly getting hurt,” Brown said. “I couldn’t go to bed that night knowing that I watched an innocent man get murdered.”
He ran back to the ambulance to tell his partner to radio for backup. As the man being stabbed cried out for help, Brown confronted the suspect, 51-year-old Jose Castillo.
“He turned at me and raised the knife at me, and so I took a step back and as soon as he turned around and continued stabbing the man I charged him and kicked him once in the head and knocked him unconscious,” Brown said. “I picked up the victim, brought him to my ambulance and threw him in the back, shut the doors, told my partner to stay in the truck.”
Brown pinned Castillo down until police arrived as Brown’s partner treated the victim, and then they rushed him to University Medical Center. He suffered 22 stab wounds to the stomach.
The man is expected to survive. Castillo was charged with attempted murder and battery with a deadly weapon.
“There is no doubt God has us in the right place at the right time,” Brown said. “A minute later - I mean, it was a miracle he was alive when we got there.”