88th Precinct Rookie Cop Saves Knife Victim In Fort Greene

NYPD Officer Christopher O’Neil knows a thing or two about saving lives. He served two years in the Navy as a combat medic in Afghanistan and experienced nostalgia as he aided a wounded man while patrolling the streets of Fort Greene one night in August.

On Saturday, Aug. 13, a 36-year-old man involved in a knife fight was gushing blood from a severed artery on his upper left arm, when O’Niel spotted him standing in the middle of Carlton Avenue.

Then, O’Niel ran back to his cop car to grab a trauma kit from the trunk. “There was still blood squirting out of the wound,” O’Neil, who hails from the 88th Precinct, told the New York Post.

The trauma kit O’Niel used to save the victim’s life contains tourniquets, a clotting agent, rubber gloves and bandages. The kit is part of the NYPD’s $1.9 million grant issued by the city for new police equipment.

Also included in that expenditure are 6,000 ballistic vests and 20,000 ballistic helmets to be issued to select groups of officers starting in September, Police Commissioner William Bratton said last month.

While the victim continued bleeding, O’Niel put on his rubber gloves and used the tourniquet to compress the victim’s arm to stop the blood flow. Officers from the 88th Precinct pulled up at the scene around 10:30 p.m. to assist the rookie cop.

O’Niel realized the victim — identified by police as Carl Lynch, who is charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon — couldn’t wait for an ambulance, so he whipped out more bandages from the kit and placed it gently on the man’s arm.

“He was very lethargic. I tried keeping him conscious, tried talking to him to keep him awake. That’s when EMS rolled up,” O’Niel said.

When EMS arrived, O’Niel helped the man get on the stretcher and into the ambulance. Though he kept his heroic antics a hush-hush, O’Niel said it made him “feel good,” to save the man’s life, and that he was only doing his job. Even 88th Precinct Commanding Officer John Buttacavoli praised O’Niel by saying he did a “grt job,” on Twitter: