Intern Stanched Giffords' Bleeding 'Til Help Came

Daniel Hernandez might have expected to be answering the phone or making coffee, but on the fifth day of his internship he found himself covered in his boss' blood, reports the Arizona Republic: As shots rang out yesterday, Hernandez says he ran toward the victims. "I don't even know if the gunfire had stopped," he says. Then he spotted Gabrielle Giffords on the ground; the 20-year-old says he stanched her bullet wound and propped her up so she wouldn't choke til help arrived.

"Make sure you stay with Gabby," a wounded staffer, Ron Barber, told Hernandez. "Make sure you stay with Gabby." The intern did, riding with Giffords to the hospital, where FBI officials confiscated his bloody clothes as evidence. "You just have to be calm and collected," says Hernandez. "You do no good to anyone if you have a breakdown. . . . It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help." (More Gabrielle Giffords stories.)