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Medical Attention After the Shooting
The
handcuffing
of Woody's arms may have prevented a physician present from
accessing his wounds and may have cost him his life.
Here is what the witnesses and police have to say about this
and other events after the shooting.
Eyewitnesses
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A doctor went over to try to ... they were going to
handcuff him first and she suggested they didn't do that. And then
the EMT"s came in and they brought in a stretcher and all of their
equipment, and sort of wrapped him up.
There was very little movement, you know, beause at that time I
looked at him, I wondered if he had really been shot and I didn't see
any blood, and people eventually got around him and I couldn't see
him at all but I heard him just sort of saying that his arm hurt.
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source:12/2 interview, p.5
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.. and they were saying everybody get out but I wasn't about to get out.
So I looked and I saw Mr. Woodward was bleeding. I saw that his arm had
been ... I saw open wounds in his arm, so I asked someone (describes
search for towels)... I could see one of an entry wound he was back
down ... I could see one in his flank area and so I needed to look at
his front to see what because I thought he was I mean when I last
looked he was facing the policemen so I was concerned about what was
in the front, but I couldn't get him turned over because his hands were
handcuffed and I kept asking the policemen, "Please take the
handcuffs off so I can turn him over" and they would not take the
handcuffs off so I could see that both arms ahd been shot. I was
trying to get the bleeding stopped. The nurse who had asked
questions, she was there helping to. Niether of us would leave. We
stayed and were tending to him. And so finally when the EMTs got
there they finally convinced them that they had to get the handcuffs
off, so they took the handcuffs off. When they got the handcuffs off,
I saw another entry wound hin his front, in his upper right quadrant.
I never saw any exit wounds but there was a bullet over on his left
side. It was just under the skin. It was just obviously right there.
I felt if I could cut the skin I could remove the bullet. This arm
had two or three, I think, bullet holes that looked like maybe one
was an entry wound with an exit ... his right arm. His elbow was
shattered. He wasn't bleeding too profusiely at the hsoptial he was
bleeding profusely from that right elbow. The left arm was also shot.
The EMT's got there by this time. By the time they got there the
elbow was really edematous, it was really swelling. And then his
left ... his right eye because very blurry. He had a surface wound
along his right temple and his eyelid started swelling. I could not
ever find any kind of bullet hole. And I couldn't figure out what was
going on with his right eye, and now I think perhaps when they had
him down maybe somehow they hit him. The surface wound on his right
temple was self inflicted. He told me later at the hopsitpal. I felt
that was probably the case. It didn't look like it had been made with
a bullet.
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He never lost consciousness. He was totally lucid throughout but he
obvciously had terrible entries because he had two abdominal bullets
and the bullets were still in there and so he was stable. He was
talking to me, told me his name and his birthd dtate, where he was
born, I gave the info to the hospital people. He was stable, He never
quit breathing. At one point he was having trouble breathing and we
made a chest Xray and it showed his chest was OK.
We did not get an abdominal Xray, I think we probably should have.
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She believes it was 10-20 minutes before the EMT's arrived.
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I mean they obviously got his stomach. They got
something, I don't even want to know what they got. And I saw his arm
hurting. And he was so totally ... I could hear him still saying
"Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. I don't want to be hurt. I don't want
to be hurt."
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She is upset that Woodward was handcuffed after he was shot.
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The ambulance was there almost immediately ... it was
surprising how quickly people arrived including the police.
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It was quite amazing, suddenly the policemen who were
firing are suddenly becoming nurses, and they are helping
(unintelligable) the body is rolled over. Two of our parishioners who
are professionals, one is an anaesthesiologist Doctor, Phyllis
Woodring, is putting gloves on and help getting him the ambulance
has arrived already and this man is placed on the stretcher and off
he goes. It's quite amazing.
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Yes, out of nowhere. I mean the police kept multiplying, like
they were reproducing themselves. The ambulance appeared very quickly,
it was amazing. As I mentioned already our own two people, our own
from our congregation were helping getting him fixed up.
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source:12/2 interview, p.3
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So I went and offered assistance to help out and the
officers were saying that if I could be First Aid, myself and Phyllis
the physician, if we could do that, to do so. So I went out to my car
and got a first aid kit and proceeded to dress some of his wounds and
speak to him.
Did he respond to you when you spoke with him?
Yes
What did he talk about?
Well, to me he seemed like he was in a state of shock. He said things
like, he would ask things like when the paramedic or even the officer
was in front of him or above him, people who were actively trying to
give him help, you know, he asked who they were, and at one point one
of the officers said, well, we're here to help you. And he kind of
laughed at that, thought it was "well, isn't that strange," or "isn't
that peculiar?" and he was saying things, he apologized for scaring
people, and that he loved us all. He thought he was dying. He
continued to have a lot of pressured speech. He just continued to say
things about plots and CIA and so on and so forth. In my mind I felt
he was probably paranoid schizophrenic.
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source:12/2 interview, p.5
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But I d did see the wounds. I was actively there through
the whole time to the time he was carried off on the stretcher. So I
saw the gun wounds. I was concerned about the gun wounds, actually.
There were three that were on the right arm. Those I understood.
Those would make sense. If you were not willing to give up the knife,
it was concerning to me is that I disinctly remember seeing two gun
shots in the abdomen which looked like it was around the liver. And
there were none, we were not ... we had not pulled off his pants
because to our knowledge there was no indication to think that there
were gun shots on the lower extremities and the concern that I had
here was if they're really concerned about getting this guy to give
up his weapon or get him immobile or whatever, seems like they would
have shot him in the leg. To shoot him in the stomach, I'm not sure
what purpose that served.
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source:12/3 interview, p.6
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One of the police officers saying "Let us help you, Let
us help you." And the other one is saying "You know, we're going to
help you, You are going to be OK, just let us help you.
And they're trying to restrain him, and then I move around to the
back of the chairs ...
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source:12/3 interview, p.6
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And Polly was there with me, she's an older woman, her
husband's a doctor, and she said "I don't know what they're doing, I
don't know what they're doing." And I said, "Well, they're trying to
restrain him right now. He's still fighting them." I saw, you know,
they had his left wrist and I did see some blood and on the elbow,
and I really thought that it was like pellet guns or something rather
than real bullets because I didn't see any blood fly and I've seen
people shot before, and he said "This is it, I knew it. I knew it. I
told you they're going, they're going to torture me now, they're
going to torture me." And he's still screaming the same thing for two
to three minutes, and I saw that they finally did get the handcuffs
on that one arm, and they're trying to lift him up a little bit to
see what's happening or where the blood is or whatever, how he was ...
And he's saying "Oh you know, it hurts, it hurts." He was just
moaning a lot, but he's still fighting them, basically. So Polly and
I went over to the side. You know, the police man had already asked
us to leave the room but it was sort of like a whole witness of all
of it just to be there and then some other police or officials, I
don't remember if they were police first or the EMT's came in, but
they were coming in from outside. Yeah, it was a policeman who let
them in, and they were EMT's and you know, there was like six people
working on him.
And ... Phylis Woodring, who went with them in the ambulance, an
older woman, she ran over and said, you know, let me see if I can
help. They were trying to stop the blood. I could see that they had
pressure points on him ... and the one police officer who had been the
first one on the scene came over and said, you know, "I really need
you to leave."
And we asked him, "were they real bullets or was it a stun gun?" And
he said it was not a stun gun. So they brought the gurney out to try
and get him on that, and he's still moaning, but he's not as, you
know, he's not as wild. And so then we left and went out into the
hallway, and I said I didn't think it was real bullets because there
were a lot of people wild and crying. And then I saw my partner
coming down the hill and I went out.. (can't understand) and that's
the last I saw of him."
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source:12/3 interview, p.15
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And after he eventually fell down, he was still struggling?
Mm-hm.
And what was the officer's demeanor at that point?
They were extremely compassionate. They were, you know, trying to do
what they could to assess his wounds. They were doing just what you'd
expect them to do.
Did they do what you expected them to do?
They did what I expected them to do. I mean, they had the highest
regard for, you know, still trying to help him out.
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I observed paramedics arriving through the doors to
attend to him, within less than five minutes from the shots.
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source:12/2 interview, p.14
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He was ah he was actually still yelling out, again I don't
remember specifically what he was saying.
He was yelling out after he was shot?
yes, and ...
OK.
and moaning.
Did the officers place him in handcuffs?
I'm not sure if they were putting handcuffs on him or not because
they were over him.
Could they have been helping him out?
Oh, well, definitely, well, I won't say definitely, but my impression
was that they were subduing him in the sense of if he still you know,
does he still have the knife, is he, is he combative, ah, in my, my
impression was that after he was shot he still had a bit of energy
going.
Did rescue show up?
Eventually.
How long after?
Oh, within five minutes
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Police
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I was able to pry the knife out of his hand and tossed it away
and tossed it away.
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Once the knife was recovered by Officer Holbrook, I
asked Officer Davies to handcuff him. I was going to hold both hands
and we got the handcuffs on him and I was not able to cuff him
myself. ... His right arm had been shot and it was bleeding and
appeared a number of wounds, so it was very, it was a little bit
slippery and stuff, but we were able to get both arms into submission
for the handcuffing.
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A woman approached and said she was a doctor, could
I help? .. I said yes, please do whatever you can.
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How long from shooting until rescue inc. arrived?
Uh, maybe two, maybe three minutes or so ...
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He wouldn't relinquish the knife even with wounds to
his arm, his right ar, he would not relinquish the knife that had
been taken away from him, and then I handcuffed the suspect after
Officer Holbrook was able to take the knife away from him.
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page last modified: 2008-07-20
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