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Officer talks of saving life of clerk shot at Family Dollar

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis police officers are being credited with saving the life of a Family Dollar store clerk after he was shot during an attempted robbery this week.

The officers showed up at the scene after 18-year-old Marvin Martinez-Pujols suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. It happened Monday night at the store at 1107A N. Arlington Ave. on the city’s east side.

Officer Bryan Sozbe was first to arrive

He said Martinez-Pujols was struggling to breathe and was bleeding profusely.

While he was working to stop the bleeding, Officer Michael Deskins showed up and grabbed a chest seal — he had bought it with his own money.

Deskins said, “With the injury to his chest, he was just muttering the word ‘air;’ ‘air’ is all he was saying. So the signs and the training I had received from the department and from talking to medics and experiences I assumed that’s what it was, so I went with the seal.”

Martinez-Pujols is expected to survive.

Police are still looking for the suspect, a heavy-set black male who stands about 6 feet tall.

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