HPOU honored Clear Lake Patrol Officer Hector Cardenas as Patrol Officer of the Month for his quick-thinking actions to save the life of a twice-wounded male last September.
The recognition came in the Union’s March general membership meeting.
Cardenas was dispatched to a residence where he found the victim of a shooting to have been shot in the head and the chest. The chest wound exited through the man’s lower back.
“Officer Cardenas immediately took command of the scene and began administering first aid,” HPOU’s Ryan Moreland told HPOU members. “He began by grabbing gauze and applied pressure to the male’s head to stop the bleeding.
“Officer Cardenas then directed backup officers to get two combat gauze packets from his first aid kit and then applied one combat gauze to the exit chest wound, then another to the male’s point of entry chest gunshot wound.”
Cardenas oversaw the lifting and carrying of the wounded male to the living room of the residence where HFD paramedics were staging their rescue operations. HFD then transported the man to the hospital where the wounded victim survived after treatment.
Moreland said, “Officer Cardenas demonstrated by his actions that any life is sacred and demonstrated his values for the sanctity of life by saving the man’s life.”