By Hayes Hickman
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - It wasn’t the first gunshot wound Tim Hall had treated, but it was the first one the registered nurse encountered in his own neighborhood.
Hall shied away from authorities’ praise for his heroic actions, however, as the first person to aid Knoxville police officer Norman Rickman after he was shot Tuesday while responding to a burglary alarm at a Northwest Knoxville home.
Hall, who works at Parkwest Medical Center, called E-911 and ran toward the scene of the shooting across the street from his home on Rockbridge Lane, despite just having seen the suspected gunman - weapon still in hand - fleeing theHall area on foot, and unaware whether any other assailants still were nearby.
Hall was one of several neighbors on the block to come to the rescue of the veteran police officer in the initial moments before paramedics arrived. KPD Chief Sterling P. Owen IV credited all of the residents’ actions for making the difference for
Rickman, who remains in critical condition at the University of Tennessee Medical Center.
“There is no doubt he is alive today because of their actions,” Owen said Wednesday morning.
For his part, though, Hall downplayed his response in the crisis.
“Everyone that saw and heard what happened responded,” said Hall, in the soft, even-keel tone of an experienced emergency room staffer. “I happened to be a nurse.”
The 37-year-old father of four small children was working in his back yard when he suddenly heard the first gunshot crack above the hum of lawnmowers Tuesday afternoon. Just as he thought it might be a car backfi ring, a quick succession of “pops” followed.
“I didn’t even finish my thought about a car when I realized, ‘Oh, that’s a gun.’” he said. “It was loud. And then, kind of almost instantaneously, I saw a person with a gun running up the street.”
Hall told his pregnant wife, Katie, who is due within weeks, to move the family to the back corner of the house as she tossed him a cell phone to call E-911.
Seeing no other threats, the nurse and other neighbors, including William Sturgill, moved toward the back yard at 6604 Rockbridge. The burglarized home’s owner, Johnny Malone, arrived from work at the same time and joined in as well.
They found Rickman lying facedown about 10 feet from an open rear window.
Hall, still talking to emergency dispatchers by phone, rolled the officer onto his back and began assessing him, looking for wounds, any signs of blood pooling to indicate a lodged bullet, and listening to his chest with a stethoscope for signs of injury to Rickman’s lungs.
“He was breathing, able to tell me his name, what had happened,” Hall said. “He was answering my questions. He was very calm.”
On initial inspection, Hall saw two wounds to Rickman’s sternum and a third in his left forearm. He also found two exit wounds, one in the back of his left arm and another on his right side - both were good signs. He applied pressure to the bleeding with the help of his neighbors.
The day after the event, Hall was anxious for any attention given to him to fade.
“I appreciate that sentiment,” he said in response to Owen’s thanks. “But really, if anyone saved his life, it was the surgeons and (emergency medical technicians).
“I’m not being modest, really. I’m being realistic. ... We did what anyone could have done - should have done.”
Copyright 2008 The Knoxville News-Sentinel