Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
What to Do If You Get Shot — The Jack Calloway Way
Jack Calloway lay flat in the ditch, dust in his teeth, gunfire snapping overhead and pinging off concrete. The ambush had been clean and professional—one second their convoy was rolling toward the American Embassy gate in Bogotá, the next it was getting carved apart by high-velocity rounds.
The sniper’s first real hit wasn’t a tire or an engine.
It was Jimmy.
Jack heard the crack, that sharp, confident report of a rifle with a good shooter behind it. Jimmy jerked like someone had yanked a cable through his spine, then folded. No scream. Just a short, shocked grunt and a sudden weight collapsing sideways.
Jack caught him and dragged them both into a shallow drainage cut as bullets stitched the road where they’d just been.
Jimmy’s eyes were wide, unfocused. His breath came in short, wet pulls.
“Talk to me,” Jack said.
“Didn’t… see that one…” Jimmy managed.
Jack ripped his shirt open.
High left torso. No exit wound. Which means only one hole to worry about. Blood welling fast, spreading in a black-red pool under his back. The wound was above the heart so best to elevate as much as possible until you can control bleeding..
Jack didn’t have time to feel anything. Just steps. Training. Muscle memory.
Step One: Stop the Bleeding
First thought: Pressure.
Jack grabbed what he had—Jimmy’s own shredded shirt, bunched it into a thick pad, and pressed it straight into the wound.
Jimmy snarled in pain and tried to jerk away.
“Stay with me,” Jack snapped. “Breathe. In. Out.”
He pressed harder. This wasn’t a gentle hand. This was “keep him alive another thirty seconds” pressure. Blood pushed through the fabric anyway, hot against Jack’s fingers.
He wanted to lift the cloth to see how bad it was and clean it.
He didn’t best to stop the bleeding and wait, it should not be long before we can get help.
You never peel back your only plug. You hold and you keep holding.
A round slammed into the concrete lip of the ditch, spraying grit over them. Jack ignored it. The only war that mattered in that second was between his hand and the blood trying to get out.
Step Two: Decide on a Tourniquet
Torso wound. No limb. No easy tourniquet.
For half a second he ran the logic tree anyway, fast and automatic:
Arterial?
Not a spraying hose, but heavy, steady flow. Deep.
Location?
Upper torso. No place to cinch above it without killing everything.
Tourniquet?
Useless here. Might make it worse.
So he skipped it.
No belt around the chest. No improvised strap. Just more pressure and the next step.
Step Three: Pack the Wound
Pressure alone wasn’t winning. He needed internal pressure—packing.
“Jimmy, listen to me,” Jack said. “This is going to hurt.”
“Already… hurts,” Jimmy whispered.
“Good. Means you’re still in the game.”
Jack tore away cleaner strips of fabric from his own undershirt, twisting them into tight rolls. With one hand he kept the main pad pressed; with the other he started to feed the strips into the wound, layer by layer.
Not jamming. Not punching. Just firm, deliberate stuffing. Filling the cavity from the deepest point he could reach.
Jimmy arched up, breath hissing. Jack pushed him back down with his forearm.
“I know,” Jack said. “Stay with me. Look at me. Eyes here.”
The bleeding slowed. Not stopped. But slowed.
That was the first tiny win.
Step Four: Hold the Line Against Shock
Jimmy was starting to fade.
Skin going pale. Lips taking on that bluish tinge Jack knew too well. Breath shallow. Fingers cold.
Shock.
“Jimmy,” Jack said, sharper now. He slapped his cheek lightly. “Stay awake.”
Jimmy’s eyes rolled, then snapped back to him.
“There you go,” Jack said. “You’re not done yet.”
He wanted to get Jimmy’s legs elevated, but the small ditch and the incoming fire made that a luxury. So he compromised—kept Jimmy as flat as possible, kept him warm with what little fabric was left, and focused on the one thing he could control:
Keep the wound packed. Keep the pressure constant. Don’t let his mind drift into the dark.
“Breathe with me,” Jack said. “In. Out. In. Out.”
Another shot cracked overhead.
Step Five: The Door That Wouldn’t Open
The Embassy gate was about thirty feet away. It might as well have been thirty miles.
Jack looked up from the ditch and yelled, “OPEN THE DOOR!”
No movement.
He shouted again, voice raw.
A guard peeked over the barrier. Then ducked back.
Somebody in there was talking on a radio, asking the wrong questions: Who is he? Is it safe? Are we cleared?
Jimmy coughed, red foaming at the edge of his lips.
“They’re… they’re gonna let me die out here, Jack,” he rasped.
“No,” Jack said. “They’re not in charge of that. I am.”
He tightened the packing one last time. The bleeding was down to a seep. It would hold—for a while.
Bullets hit closer. The sniper was walking rounds in.
Time was gone.
Step Six: Move or Die
Jack slung Jimmy’s arm over his own neck, kept one hand pressed over the packed wound, and started dragging him out of the ditch.
The world narrowed to three things: the weight of Jimmy, the distance to the door, and the sniper somewhere above them.
Every step was a negotiation between gravity and will.
Ten feet.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
Jack could hear the Embassy guards shouting now. A buzzer finally sounded. The heavy gate began to shift.
“About time,” Jack muttered through clenched teeth.
Two Marines rushed out, grabbed Jimmy under the shoulders, and hauled him the rest of the way in. Jack stumbled in behind them.
The steel door slammed shut.
A final round smacked into the outside with a flat, angry ring.
Step Seven: Hand-Off
Inside the compound, the world changed tones. Fluorescent lights. Clean walls. The smell of disinfectant. A different kind of war.
The medics met them halfway, hands already gloved, kits already open.
Jack kept his palm over the wound until the last possible second, then lifted it for them to see: fabric packed deep, dressing pressed flat, bleeding mostly controlled.
One of the medics glanced at him, eyebrows raised.
“Nice work,” he said. “You bought him time.”
They cleaned the wounds with hydrogen peroxide to take crap out first, and they pour in something that look like honey, and then a patch. IV’s came and he was safe.
Jack just nodded and stepped back, hands slick with Jimmy’s blood.
Time was all he had to give.
Jimmy lived for now.
Not because the Embassy was safe. Not because the door eventually opened. He lived because step by step, in a filthy ditch under sniper fire, Jack did everything a man could do with torn fabric, two hands, and the refusal to let a friend die alone in the street.
It was about knowing the steps, taking them anyway, and carrying the weight of those moments long after the blood is washed off your hands.
