Injured Las Vegas Shooting Survivor Meets Stranger Who Helped Him

On Sunday night, a gunman killed 59 people and injured over 500 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas. Tom McIntosh is one of the injured. When the shooting occurred just after 10 p.m., McIntosh and his wife ran for their lives. He helped her and another woman escape over a wall but before he could make it out himself, he was shot in the leg.

“I jumped over the wall and kind of walked trying to get away [but I was] bleeding really bad,” McIntosh said in an appearance on the “Today” show. “My pants were already soaked and my shoe was full of blood.”

That’s when James Lawson, a Good Samaritan and complete stranger, stepped into help. McIntosh, who had found his way to the back of a pickup truck, was bleeding heavily. Though another stranger had tried to tie a makeshift tourniquet around his wound with a belt, it was not in the right spot.

Lawson, who People.com reports had EMT training in the Army Reserves, adjusted the belt so that it stopped the bleeding. Another man in the pickup truck drove them to the hospital, where McIntosh was treated for his injuries.

On Oct. 3, host Samantha Guthrie reunited McIntosh and Lawson for a segment on “Today.” The emotional reunion was a surprise to McIntosh.

Watch the touching clip below:

“I know I wouldn’t have made it. I’m very thankful that James was there to help me,” McIntosh tells Guthrie, before she reveals that he is about to meet the man who saved his life.

You can hear the genuine emotion in the two men’s voices as they embrace and greet each other.

When Guthrie suggests that the two must have been terrified at their ordeal, McIntosh says of Lawson, “He was cool. I was terrified.”

Lawson says that he repeatedly reassured McIntosh that he would not lose his foot. He remained humble about his heroic act, telling Guthrie, “There were dozens and dozens of other concertgoers doing the same thing.”

Lawson also thanked the driver of the pickup truck who brought them to the ER, noting that the evening could have ended much differently.

The Las Vegas shooting has been a heartbreaking tragedy, but we’re so glad for the stories coming out about everyday heroes like Lawson.