I Was in the Back of the Bar Taking a Cigarette Break': Surveillance Video Captures Heroic Responses to Bourbon Street Shooting

When a shooting rocked New Orleans' famous Bourbon Street early Sunday, most bystanders turned and fled. But even in the midst of the chaos, some good Samaritans turned to help the wounded.

A surveillance camera recorded bartender Jimmy Burgin responding to the crisis.

"I was in the back of the bar taking a cigarette break when all of a sudden I heard a lot of gunshots, it had to be like more than eight of them," Burgin told WWL-TV.

After shutting the bar's door, Burgin saw a 19-year-old Arkansas woman who had stumbled in, wounded and clutching her abdomen.

Image source: WWL-TV

He knelt to help her.

"I was just wanting to see how bad off she was," Burgin said. "I asked her if she was able to breathe OK and if she could feel her legs. She told me everything was OK as far as that goes, it just really hurt bad."

WWL-TV also tracked down AJ Garcia and his girlfriend Amanda Hawkins, who helped another shooting victim early Sunday.

"[The victim] was shot in the knee and then we lifted his pants up and he was just gushing blood and I took my shirt off and my girlfriend tied it around his leg," said Garcia.

Hawkins said her background in the medical field guided her actions as she tied the shirt into a tourniquet and elevated the injured man's leg "above his heart."

The shooting, which occurred just before 3 a.m. Sunday and left nine people injured, was the fault of “two cowardly young men trying to hurt each other,” New Orleans Police Chief Ronal Serpas said at a news conference. “What happened was two young men got angry at each other and shot at each other."

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