Sweet Home Police Officer Chris Wingo received the Sweet Home Police Department’s Lifesaving Medal for saving a man’s life in December.
The presentation took place during the city’s Jim Bean Public Safety Fair on June 21.
On Dec. 11, Linn County Sheriff’s Office advised that Sweet Home medics were responding to a stabbing at South Fork Trailer Park, said Police Chief Jeff Lynn. Wingo responded to what turned out to be an attempted suicide.
Wingo located an adult male lying on the kitchen floor with a self-inflicted stab wound to his right leg. His artery had been cut. Wingo immediately began administering first aid and applied direct pressure to the wound until medics arrived. Medics transported the male to the hospital.
Two individuals wrote letters recognizing Wingo’s effort in saving the male’s life.
“To put this in perspective, I felt that if emergency medical services were even a minute or two later intervening with what the patient had inflicted on himself, the patient would have died by bleeding out,” Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Battalion Chief Ken Weld said. “Officer Wingo’s quick thinking and actions definitely played a role in this person surviving a tragic self-inflicted wound, and I feel he deserves to be recognized for going above and beyond the call of duty.”
Sweet Home Police Officer Geoff Hamlin wrote the second letter, nominating Wingo for the award.
The Lifesaving Medal may be awarded to a member of the department who through his or her self-initiated actions significantly and directly contributed to the saving of a human life, without unnecessarily placing the member’s own life in peril, Lynn said. The awards program exists to recognize outstanding performance, extraordinary achievement or a heroic act of a member of the Police Department.