AUSTIN — When officers found a 16-year-old boy wounded by gunfire in Austin, he was lying in a pool of his own blood.
The teen had been shot at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 1100 block of North Lawler Avenue, said Officer Kevin Quaid, a Chicago Police spokesman. Officers responding to the shooting found him in an apartment.
Seeing the teen's gunshot wound, the officers got a belt from someone who lived in the apartment and used it as a tourniquet on the boy's leg, according to a Chicago Police news release. Tourniquets can slow or block blood flow so someone who is wounded won't bleed to death.
The officers also applied pressure to the boy's wound while helping him remain calm, police said.
Paramedics came and took the boy to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said.
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