A school security guard who was almost killed when a sniper opened fire outside a D.C. school returned to George Washington University Hospital Thursday to thank those who saved his life.
Retired police Officer Antonio Harris thanked God, his surgeon and the first responders who rushed him out of danger the day a sniper opened fire near Edmund Burke School in the District almost six months ago.
Harris was so badly wounded he bled internally for hours.
“Words alone cannot express how grateful I am to have survived the gunshot wound that day,” he said. “I’ve had a lifelong career in law enforcement, but as a retired police officer I expected the risks of sustaining these type of injuries were behind me.”
Harris was outside the school just minutes before dismissal when he was shot. Another off-duty police officer working at the school picked him up and ran him out of danger.
Within minutes, Harris was in the care of paramedic Brian Shannon.
“I remember being in the ambulance but I didn’t remember, particularly, the faces that I was around, so I was looking forward to this day to meet,” he said.
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The trauma surgeon who took care of Harris, Dr. Babak Sarani said they had to do something they had never done before – putting into his body in what’s called a REBOA (resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta) catheter and leaving it there for 20 hours, 17 hours longer than it had ever been done before. He said had they not done that, Harris would have bled to death.
“I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that without a REBOA catheter, Officer Harris would have died that night,” Sarani said.
Harris said he is still recovering.
“I haven’t been back to the schools yet, you know, but I do plan on returning,” he said.
Three other people were shot and wounded that day.
The sniper killed himself. Police say they do not know his motive.
