A man in a bloody T- shirt graphically described treating one of the victims shot during Saturday's attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
The man, who appeared to be in his 70s, told CBS News that he "heard the shots" but mistook them for firecrackers until someone started screaming: "He's been shot! He's been shot!"
" I made my way over. I said, 'I'm an emergency department physician. Let me help you,'" he said, according to a video recording. "The guy had spun around, was jammed between the benches."
The man, who also wore a red "Keep America Great" hat, then pointed to the side of his head as he described the victim's wound.
"He had a headshot here. There was lots of blood and he had brain matter there," he said as a helicopter arrived at the scene in Butler, near Pittsburgh.
An emergency room doctor I spoke with tried to save someone’s life in the crowd @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/OJvScwRLRk
— jake rosen (@JakeMRosen) July 13, 2024
The man said he performed CPR on the victim while being assisted by other "really helpful" rally attendees.
"I did chest compressions as well as to breathe for him," he said.
CBS News didn't identify the man, but he appeared to be Dr. James Sweetland, who told the New York Times he treated the victim who was killed in the shooting that authorities blamed on a lone gunman identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20.
Crooks, of Bethel Parks, Pennsylvania, was fatally shot by Secret Service agents and an AR-style semiautomatic rifle was recovered near his body on the roof of a building outside Butler Park, where the rally was held.
Sweetland said that the victim he treated, who appeared to be in his 30s, was lying in a pool of blood and that two people helped lift him onto a bench so he could perform CPR while someone put pressure on the wound above the man's ear.
But the man had no pulse before two Pennsylvania state troopers helped lift the man onto a stretcher, Sweetland said.
Authorities have said one man was killed and two others were critically wounded by gunfire that also left Trump with a minor wound when a bullet pierced his upper right ear as he addressed the crowd.
Sweetland said he spent hours waiting to get into the rally site, according to the Washington Post, which identified him as a retired emergency department physician from DuBois, Pennsylvania.
"It seemed secure. I think I saw military and there were SWAT teams," he said. "On the buildings behind the stage were two sets of sharpshooters wearing all black, with obvious high-velocity weapons. They were scoping the surrounding buildings."
Sweetland also downplayed his actions in responding to the shooting.
"I'm not a hero," he told the Times. "I just did what I was trained to do."
