KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri police officer Tyler Moss had a 1 percent chance of survival after a gunshot to his head.
Split-second actions by other officers lifted those odds to 100 percent.
The Metropolitan Chiefs and Sheriffs Association honored Moss and the officers and their supervisors Friday with awards for valor.
A gunman shot Moss July 2 in the 3300 block of Stadium Drive.
Moss and several other officers were sent to that area to find the man after he allegedly tried to carjack someone and was acting erratically, according to a blog post from Kansas City, Missouri Police Chief Rick Smith.
Officer Moss and Officer Levi Plaschka spotted the man and ordered him to show his hands.
The man pulled a gun and shot Moss.
Plaschka immediately shot back and killed the man.
Other officers carried Moss from the scene as Plaschka made sure everyone was safe, the blog post states.
Sgt. Jason Childers sped to the scene after helping at an earlier officer-involved shooting that day.
With the shooting scene not yet declared safe, Childers drove into the scene.
Officers loaded Moss into Childers' patrol car and Officer Alisha Shockley jumped into the back seat with Moss.
Shockley applied pressure to the wound while another officer stayed by Moss during the ride to Truman Medical Center, according to the blog post.
Doctors later said the decision to take Moss to the hospital before an ambulance arrived likely saved his life.
"If his colleagues waited for EMS - and that's no knock on EMS - but this type of injury, minutes and seconds are vital,'' one of doctors said later that day at a news conference.
Moss not only survived the shooting, but after three weeks in a Kansas City hospital, he was sent to a rehabilitation hospital out of state.
He returned to Kansas City, Missouri recently and continues his recovery.
Moss wants to return to a job on the police department.
