LAX shooting: Teacher feared bleeding to death while hiding in closet - Los Angeles Times
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LAX shooting: Teacher feared bleeding to death while hiding in closet

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Speaking from his hospital bed, Brian Ludmer said this week that he used a sweat shirt as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding after he was shot by a gunman at Los Angeles International Airport.

“I didn’t know what his intention was,” Ludmer said, according to CBS Los Angeles. “I only saw me and him. ... I was in total panic.”

The 29-year-old Calabasas High School teacher was on his way to Chicago on Friday for a wedding when gunfire broke out in Terminal 3, sending people scurrying for cover.

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“It was hard to know what was going on, where the shots were coming from,” he said.

As he and other travelers ran in different directions, he was struck in the calf.

“Below the bullet wound my leg was just hanging,” Ludmer said. He crawled into a storage room at a nearby shop, shut the door and found a sweat shirt to use as a tourniquet.

He told reporters he thought he might bleed to death or that the gunman would return.

Soon, police came to the rescue. Officers helped him into a wheelchair and they raced through the terminal.

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“They got me out of there, even though it was at great risk to themselves,” Ludmer said.

A Transportation Security Administration agent was killed and at least three other people were wounded when the gunman -- identified by authorities as 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia -- allegedly opened fire at the entrance to a LAX security checkpoint.

On Tuesday, students at Calabasas High School held a rally to show support for Ludmer and protest gun violence.

“We know he’s going through a lot and needs a lot of donations because his medical bills are really rising quickly,” student Sam Kaufman told KTLA-TV.

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