Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1079661
t m c » p u l s e | f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 9 22 Barnes barked into his radio, then focused his attention down the hallway. Slowly, carefully, and with his gun drawn, he slid his body along the left side of the wall, using it, and the corner, as a shield. He was going to sneak up on the shooter. With his pistol out front, he hugged the corner of the wall and drew himself out. The assailant—Dimitrios Pagourtzis, at the time a 17-year-old student, is accused of the shooting rampage at the school—was standing there with his father's shotgun, waiting. The teen- ager allegedly pulled the trigger as soon as he saw the officer's right arm. Only 60 seconds had passed since Barnes first stepped out of his office. * * Shotguns are not loaded with the same slick, ogival- nosed bullets found inside handguns or assault rifles. Instead, they use shells packed with tiny metallic projec- tiles known as shot. Once fired, the shot sprays the target, creating multiple entry points; if a shooter's aim is off, he or she may still hit a target's periphery. Every shotgun shell holds a certain number of pellets. In Barnes' case, at least three pellets tore through his right arm, shredding his brachial artery, a main thoroughfare to the heart. Barnes, a husband and father of two, would have bled to death within minutes had it not been for Officer Forward, who pulled a tourniquet from his vest and swiftly wrapped it around his friend's arm. The team had only begun to carry the military-grade devices a month earlier, an addition Barnes had initially dismissed as frivolous. "It was like somebody stuck a hose in it and it was just draining out," Barnes would later say of his wound. He can remember looking down at the large hole in his arm and feeling sick. The two officers kept their eyes fixed on the hallway, waiting for the shooter to swing back around the corner at any second. Barnes kept telling Forward to leave; the thought of a colleague taking a bullet while tending to his arm was unbearable. But Forward refused, and once the tourniquet was secure, he held open the door to a nearby dance classroom so that Barnes could crawl inside. Then Forward left— back to the hallway, to the corner and to the shooter. Soon, a group of officers found Barnes and helped him to his feet. He only made it about 10 yards before collapsing to the ground. "Drag me, just drag me, just drag me," he remembers pleading. With the threat of the shooter looming, one of the officers, unthinking, grabbed Barnes' right arm. Pain stunned his whole body. Ultimately, Barnes was dragged out of Santa Fe High by his duty belt, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Paramedics lifted him onto a stretcher as close friend and fellow Santa Fe ISD officer Elizabeth "Cibby" Moore rushed to his side. They could still hear the roar of gunfire inside the school. Barnes felt faint, his head somehow both airy and weighted, like he was floating under a lead blanket. His blood was everywhere but inside his body. Amid his haze, he could make out that he was riding in an ambulance. Law enforcement responds to Santa Fe High School on May 18, 2018, after an active shooter was reported on campus. Credit: Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP