WOWKTV
May 5, 2014
A Charleston, WV man has a long road to recovery after his left-arm was nearly blown off with a .45 caliber gun.
Craig Tolley, 37, ran out to his car just before 11:30 a.m. on April 23.
“I open the gate to go to walk and I hear pop, pop, pop,” he said.
Tolley realized he had been shot after blood started shooting out of the main artery in his left arm. He later learned he wasn’t the intended target.
Police said two rival groups opened fire at each other at hit Tolley instead. Those men have been arrested and charged in connection with the shooting.
The bullet severed a main artery in Tolley’s arm, and he almost bled out on his front lawn.
His son, C.J., immediately ran down the stairs when he heard his dad’s cries.
“They still don’t know if it’s going to take to save my hand and I’m left-handed. It’s my career, my life,” he said.
Tolley says if it wasn’t for Officer Adam Lindell of the Charleston Police Department, he’d be dead. Lindell was just around the block when he heard the gunshots, he said. He immediately went to the scene and found Tolley bleeding on the ground.
Lindell grabbed a stranger’s belt and made a tourniquet out of it around Tolley’s arm. Lindell said he was just doing his job and what do it again if he had the chance.
“He saved my life. That man is a hero,” Tolley said of Lindell.
Tolley recently accepted a high-paying construction job, but without his left arm, he can’t work.
He’s worried about how he will take care of his young son.
Tolley’s family has set up a public fund at City National Bank to help pay for his expenses during what will be months of intensive therapy and healing.
Anyone wishing to make a donation must reference ‘Craig Tolley Donation Account’. They have also set up a ‘Go Fund Me’ account online.