Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and Police Chief Eve Thomas awarded the Life Saving Award to Knoxville Police Department Officer Garrett Fontanez. 

Officer Fontanez has been with the department since January 2014.  

On March 11, 2018, at approximately 1:37 p.m., Officer Fontanez responded to an injured person call at a business on Clinton Highway.  When Officer Fontanez arrived on the scene he was advised that a male employee was bleeding profusely from his leg and was going unconscious.  The individual was not the victim of a crime; however, he had a pre-existing injury to his leg that had been re-injured during the course of his workday.  

Officer Fontanez immediately began rendering aid to the victim by cutting away his pants leg to see where the blood was coming from.  Officer Fontanez, realizing the amount of blood loss was life-threatening, immediately retrieved his tourniquet and applied it to the victim’s leg.  The blood loss immediately stopped.  EMS arrived to further the medical aid Officer Fontanez had initiated.  Medical personnel advised that this victim had lost 2 liters of blood, which was the threshold for loss of this male’s life.  The placing of the tourniquet was absolutely instrumental in saving the life of the victim.  

Chief Thomas said, “Officer Fontanez’s commendable actions are among the finest which police officers and their profession hold dear.  His actions reflect honorably upon himself, his department, and the entire law enforcement community.”