Mailman's Movie- Watching Pays Off in Bloody Rescue

Fernando Garcia uses idea he saw on the big screen to save chainsaw victim
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 14, 2020 10:10 AM CDT
'Hero' Mailman Saves Day After Bloody Chainsaw Accident
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/Zoran Kompar)

A California mail carrier is being called a hero after his quick thinking helped save an elderly man's life. CNN and the AP report Fernando Garcia was wrapping up his usual route in Norwalk on Friday when he heard screaming coming from a nearby home. He hurried toward the commotion, and as he approached, he found a man on the ground. "When he turned around. I saw that he was holding his left arm," Garcia says, per CBS Los Angeles. "And he was just covered in blood." It turned out the 70-year-old Miguel Cabral had accidentally cut his own arm with a chainsaw while fixing the garage roof. "I looked once and I knew it was bad, so I told my sister to call [911]," Cabral tells the AP.

Cabral laid down in the grass outside the garage to slow the bleeding while waiting for help, which is when Garcia arrived on the scene. The mail carrier yanked off his belt, looped it around Cabral's hurt arm, and turned it into a tourniquet, a technique he says he's seen in the movies. He stayed with Cabral until an ambulance showed up, then headed to Target to get a new shirt and belt to replace the bloodied ones so he could finish up his route. Cabral's family says he was released from the hospital on Sunday and is starting to be able to move his hand. "EVERY DAY HERO," the Norwalk unit of the LA County Sheriff's Department tweeted in praise of Garcia. "Man has good prognosis due 2 Mr. Garcia's actions." (More uplifting news stories.)

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