Firefighters Recount Saving MBTA Officer During Watertown Gunfight

BOSTON (CBS) - When officer Richard Donohue was shot in the gun battle with the Tsarnaev brothers early Friday morning, it did not take long for emergency medical technicians from the Watertown Fire Department to get the call.

"So an alarm and an announcement that a police officer has been shot and down," recalls Patrick Menton about what he heard on the radio dispatch.

Patrick Menton and Jimmy Caruso left their fire station and raced to the scene to find officers tending to the injured officer. He had been shot in the groin area and had already lost most of his blood.

"He didn't look well at all," said Menton. "He was bleeding, a lot of blood, he had no pulse."

Caruso says they spent only about two minutes on scene as they knew it was critical to get the officer to the hospital.

"My partner was bagging him, breathing for him...a state police officer was doing chest compressions, and I was controlling the bleeding, putting pressure on the wound," said Caruso.

They treated Donohue on a driveway, where they did not even notice all the chaos they were in the middle of.

"We had tunnel vision and it was all on officer Donahue," said Menton. "We didn't look around much, it was just focusing all on the patient."

Sine then, the two have visited Donahue twice in the hospital where he has been improving.

"He's doing very well it seems, so hopefully he just continues to get better," said Menton.