Armando Lopez was packing up after playing a gig at a nightclub in south Denver on Saturday when his bandmate pointed out a man bleeding in the street outside.
Alicia Cardenas was one of five people killed in a spree shooting on Dec. 27, 2021, in Denver and Lakewood. Her friend Armando Lopez took “Stop the Bleed” training in her honor. (Provided by Alfredo Cardenas)
The man’s leg was nearly severed, Lopez said, and he was bleeding at “a pretty lethal rate.”
“I remember saying to my (Brothers of Brass) bandmate, ‘That’s too much blood. That’s a lot of blood,’ ” Lopez said.
Denver police said the hit-and-run crash near South Broadway Street and East lowa Avenue happened about 10:20 p.m. when the driver of a lime green Dodge Ram hit a motorcycle rider, who then slid and hit a pedestrian. Both the motorcyclist and the pedestrian had life-threatening injuries.
Lopez’s next moves were almost automatic, he said. He ran to his truck and grabbed the trauma kit he started carrying after his friend Alicia Cardenas was fatally shot in December 2021 at her shop, Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing.
He remembered the Stop the Bleed certification he signed up for while processing Cardenas’ death and immediately applied a tourniquet to the man’s leg and tried to comfort him until an ambulance arrived.
“I tried to tell him he was going to survive, he was still alive, he was going to make it to the hospital,” Lopez said.
The man did survive, and Lopez said he hopes his experience inspires others to get Stop the Bleed training so they can help save lives in a crisis.
Lopez was at Sol Tribe on Dec. 27, 2021, shortly before Cardenas and Alyssa Gunn Maldonado were fatally shot by a gunman who also killed three others in a shooting spree across Denver and Lakewood.
Cardenas was working on a large tattoo on Lopez, but he stopped the session early because of pain, he said.
In the aftermath, Lopez found himself wishing he had been there and could have helped.
“But then what would I do if I was there? What could I have done?” Lopez said. “That caused me to go out and get that training and be passionate about emergency response.”
He first got certified in Stop the Bleed, a trauma course through the American College of Surgeons and Department of Defense, when some friends organized a certification in the wake of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, and he took a refresher course last year.
“I had always hoped I would never use that training,” Lopez said. “But if you are in a place where it’s life or death… it serves us to be prepared, especially from a community, mutual aid standpoint.”
For anyone who worries they wouldn’t be able to respond like he did in an emergency, Lopez said no one will know until they try.
“I think we’re braver than we think we are. When the time comes and we’re called, that training is very important,” he said.
The crash is still under investigation, according to the Denver Police Department. Anyone with information can call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.
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