Officer Wounded in Texas High School Shooting Heads Home

Officer John Barnes — who along with Officer Gary Forward rushed to end the threat of an active shooter at Santa Fe High School in May — walked out of a Houston-area hospital on Wednesday.

Barnes credits Forward — the department’s assistant chief — for saving his life by quickly applying a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding from his severely wounded arm.

“Had he not done that, I would have bled out within minutes,” he told the Houston Chronicle . “Had he not been right there with me, I would have died.”

Barnes still faces many months of rehabilitation, but upon his release from hospital, his mind was on relaxation.

“I just want to sit on the porch and smoke a cigar,” Barnes told the Chronicle.