One of the two surgeons who treated casualties in the street after the mass shooting in Krakow said his colleague “undoubtedly” saved the life of a police officer shot in the chest, after the pair abandoned a family lunch and ran toward the gunfire.
Professor Michal Pędziwiatr and Dr Mateusz Wierdak were eating with their families near the city’s Main Market Square on Saturday when a gunman began firing at random, killing six people and wounding 15. Pędziwiatr recalled his son running up to the table: “Dad, they’re shooting at people there, people are falling to the ground.”
At the scene, the doctors treated both the apparent attacker and the two officers who had been shot while subduing him. “When it comes to saving lives, it doesn’t matter who is who,” Pędziwiatr said.
Once the firing stopped, Pędziwiatr attended to other victims and to the perpetrator, while Wierdak worked on the officer struck in the chest during the gunfight. “He, to put it colloquially, stuffed all the bandages into [the police officer’s] chest and stuck his hands in,” Pędziwiatr said. “If not for that, I don’t know how things would have turned out, as there was a long wait for the ambulance.”
Pędziwiatr said he then telephoned John Paul II Hospital, home to the Department of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery, and insisted the officer be taken there. “I insisted they take him there because, in my opinion, he had the best chance of survival there, where there were specialists for precisely this type of injury,” he said.
Wierdak is a well-known surgeon in Krakow. The University Hospital in Krakow lists Pędziwiatr as head of General, Oncological, Metabolic and Emergency Surgery.
The two officers were identified as senior constables Jakub Kulik and Artur Morański. Both emerged from comas on Sunday. The prime minister called them “true heroes” for stopping the attacker before more people could be killed, and the mayor of Krakow said he had submitted an urgent request for the pair to be awarded the title of honorary citizens of the city.
Six people were killed and 15 injured when the rampage began shortly before 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Saturday in the historic center of Krakow. Footage showed the attacker’s vehicle speeding through the center of the city as people fled and gunfire rang out. Bullets shattered the glass fronts of shops, and a tram was shot at. Police said the attack lasted about three minutes.
Among the dead were a British national and an Austrian woman, alongside four Poles.
The suspect, a 24-year-old Polish man who has not been named by authorities, remains in critical condition. He wore full military tactical gear during the attack and was described as carrying a military-grade weapon, but the government said he was not a member of the Polish armed forces.
The bodies of his parents and sister were found when his house was searched after the attack. Poland’s National Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation, with a unit specializing in “terrorist offences” taking the lead.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said “everything suggests” the suspect was “fascinated by far-right ideologies” and held ultra-nationalist views.
Six volunteers from Dublin Civil Defence also helped in the aftermath. James McConnell, an officer with the group, said the volunteers were on a city break and were close to the main square when the shooting began, and that the group, trained to provide medical care, immediately went to help the injured with “CPR and hemorrhage control.”
People near the square described panic and confusion as the attack unfolded. Ruby Catherine Warren, from London, heard gunfire and “yelled at my friends to run and we all sprinted for our lives.” Unsure where the gunman was or whether there was more than one, they “just kept sprinting” until they found a hotel to hide inside.
Tom Brook, from West Yorkshire, was inside a McDonald’s near the square when he heard “multiple gunshots and saw people running for cover.” He added: “I then walked into the square and saw paramedics working on someone outside [a shop] and there was a dead body covered in foil blankets 20 meters away.”
Main Market Square reopened on Sunday evening after the security cordon was lifted.