Kevin Sterne, a Virginia Tech student from Eighty Four, Pa.: Kevin Sterne, age 23, ... was in Norris Hall on Virginia Tech's campus on April 16, 2007, when a shooter went on a rampage killing 32 people and then himself. Mr. Sterne was shot twice in the right leg while he was in Room 207, the German class, and he saw several of his classmates killed. Mr. Sterne knew he was bleeding to death, so he fashioned an electrical cord as a tourniquet to stop his wounds from bleeding until the rampage ended and he could be carried to safety by emergency personnel. One of Mr. Sterne's gunshot wounds ruptured his femoral artery, which caused him to lose a substantial amount of blood, but as an Eagle Scout, Mr. Sterne's training and quick thinking helped him save his own life. The photograph of Mr. Sterne being carried by rescue workers with the tourniquet around his wounded leg became a defining image of the worst school shooting in our country's history.
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