By EMS1 Staff
LAS VEGAS — A California firefighter was performing CPR on a Las Vegas shooting victim when he himself was shot in the chest, according to witnesses.
Doctor and former firefighter Mike Brown said he received a phone call from his cousin Kelly Presten McCurdy who had gone to the music festival with her sister, Jessi Presten, according to the Daily Beast.
McCurdy said Presten had been shot, but her injury was not life-threatening and she was in their room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Brown gave them emergency advice and told them to call 911, and he drove to the perimeter of the incident to pick up three of his cousin’s friends, including two firefighters.
As they climbed into Brown’s backseat, Brown noticed that one of the firefighters, Steve Keyes, was bleeding from his chest.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I got shot,’” Brown recalled. “He lifts his shirt up. He was shot in the chest. He said, ‘I’ll be fine.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, you ain’t John Wayne.”’
Brown then learned that Keyes was performing CPR on another victim when he was shot.
“These guys are all firemen,” Brown said. “They’re taking care of the people instead of just taking off.”
Brown said that Keyes and the others involved were all OK and trying to get home.
He added that instead of speaking of their actions, the firefighters expressed their amazement at the bravery of the police officers who ran toward the gunfire.