(Seguin) — The life saving efforts put into action last month by a Seguin Police Officer is not going unnoticed. Last month on Jan. 18, Officer Brian Lopez and other officers responded to a shooting in the 600 block of Melrose Street. Officer Lopez was second on scene and located a male victim in the roadway suffering from a gunshot wound in the middle of his chest.
Officer Lopez immediately and calmly requested another officer to grab a department issued IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit) kit from the vehicle while he held his gloved hand over the open chest wound. Officer Lopez placed a chest seal over the wound, rolled the victim into the recovery position, and began quickly sweeping for additional injuries. Fire/EMS arrived shortly and took over care of the victim. The victim was transported to a trauma hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.
That night’s efforts according to Seguin Police Chief Terry Nichols resulted in Lopez’s nomination for a VINCIBLE Award through the Texas Police Chief’s Association (TPCA).
“They have a program called VINCIBLE. It’s a PowerPoint training that we get every week from them and it has tenants to it. One, they want officers to slow down and not drive too fast, want to make sure they wear their body armor, want to make sure they stay fit, they wear their seatbelts and that they have the tactical competencies that we need as a police officer — that they are doing the right things tactically, safe. They developed this award program in conjunction with the Texas Municipal League which is the city’s insurance carrier because it is in their best interest that if we do things right, that insurance claims will go down as well so they bought these first aid kits to award officers that are nominated for doing great things and Officer Lopez was nominated and they all agreed — the committee that looked at this — agreed to his actions in January absolutely merited the award,” said Nichols.
Nichols says as part of that recognition, Officer Lopez on Thursday was awarded his own personal IFAK kit, a VINCIBLE patch and VINCIBLE challenge coin from the TPCA.
Officer Brian Lopez left and Police Chief Terry Nichols
“Officer Lopez is very well trained and he was very calm under pressure on this particular incident. He knew exactly what to do and that just shows the training. Not only did he do the training but he retained the training and this is what we expect of our officers and he’s a great example of the quality of officers that we have here at the department that they are capable of doing this not just our police job but this is actually kind of outside — a medical role for us. So, I’m very proud of them and I think any of our officers would have acted the same way but it happened to be Brian that night and I’m very proud of him,” said Nichols.
Officer Lopez has served the Seguin Police Department for the last two and a half years.