Fort Carson soldier uses Army skills to save man's life

Kingman soldier uses Army skills to save man's life
Gonzales first on the scene of accident at Fort Carson

Erin Taylor
Miner Staff Reporter


KINGMAN - Spc. Raymond Gonzales recently got back from a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, but it was only after his return stateside that he got a chance to put his military medical training into use to save a life.

Gonzales, 24, is currently stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado where he lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their three girls. Both Raymond and Jennifer grew up in Kingman and still visit several times a year.

Raymond was on his way to work on the morning of July 15 when he came upon a man lying in the street who only seconds before had been hit by a car.

Gonzales was the first person on scene and automatically reverted to his medical training.

"We call it 'muscle memory,'" he said. "You just go back to your training. You don't even realize what you're doing while you're doing it."

Gonzales used his uniform shirt to compress a wound on the man's neck that was pouring blood from the jugular vein. At the same time, he quickly assessed the man's double compound fracture to his right arm and used the waistband from a passersby's sweatpants to stem the bleeding from a wound there.
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Kingman soldier uses Army skills to save man life