Hero nurse unwittingly treated suspect at Kansas City Chiefs parade shooting
A nurse who attended the Kansas City Chiefs parade rushed to help a man wounded in the mass shooting, using her sweatshirt to stanch his bleeding — only to learn later that he was one of the accused shooters.
Jessica Dean, a hospice nurse in Wichita, Kansas, was leaving the rally on Feb. 14 when gunfire erupted and she noticed two men and a woman bleeding on the ground, the Kansas City Star reported.
A bystander was performing CPR on one man while the other lay bleeding profusely beside him, according to the outlet.
“I think my brain was telling me to run, that ‘You have a husband, you have kids at home, you’ve got to go,’” Dean told the outlet. “There’s something about, when you see somebody laying there like that, my heart could just not leave them.
“If it was me or somebody I loved, and the roles were reversed, I would want or hope that somebody would help,” she added.
Little did she know that her patient was 23-year-old Lyndell Mays, who has been charged along with Dominic Miller, 18, with second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.
Dean told a cop that she’s a nurse and she began administering first aid after she noticed a bullet wound in Mays’ chest and another close to his groin, the Star reported.
To stop the bleeding, the nurse said, she used her sweatshirt to put pressure on his chest. Lying nearby was a handgun.
When first responders arrived, they took over for Dean, who told Mays’ nearby sister that he was in critical condition but still had a pulse.
She said it’s tough to know that a person she helped save is charged in the shooting, which claimed the life of popular local DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan and wounded 22 people.
However, Dean, who began her career as a nurse in a correctional facility, also noted that as a medical professional, she helps anyone — regardless of what side of the law they are on.
Before the charges were lodged, Dean asked Mays’ sister for an update on his condition.
“At the end of the day, I still wanted to know how he was doing,” she told the Star. “Despite the charges that he’s facing, I don’t want anybody’s life to end, regardless of their involvement in it.
“Even with his (alleged) involvement and getting the gun out and everything else, I wish he nor anyone else that day would’ve been a victim of gun violence,” she added.
Mays and Miller were part of two separate groups bickering at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade when Mays claimed he feared for his life and fired his gun first, according to his interview with police.
Mays told investigators that he “picked one of the individuals in the group at random, and started shooting.”
His mother, Teneal Burnsid, set up a since-deleted GoFundMe for him, saying he needed help through a “tragic time.”
Both suspects are being held on $1 million bonds.
