HALL COUNTY, Ga. — It was just a quick stop at a Dollar General Store in Gainesville. Daniel Alvarado and his girlfriend wanted to return some items.
After they left the store, around 10 p.m. July 6, Alvarado saw a man walking in his direction.
He had a gun. Then he felt the barrel against his stomach.
“He aimed it at my stomach, and he told me he was gonna shoot and rob me,” Alvarado said. “He wanted my stuff. He was trying to grab my stuff.”
He said the man was also reaching into Alvarado’s pockets, where he carried only his phone and keys.
“I knew I wasn’t gonna let him rob me,” he said. “That’s when I tried to grab the gun off of him, and like strangle the gun out of him.”
But a gunshot did fire. The bullet went through Alvarado’s right leg, severing vessels. He lay on the ground, bleeding heavily. The gunman ran off, taking nothing.
“I honestly thought I was gonna lose him that night,” said Esperanza Aragon, his girlfriend, who called 911.
She crouched by his side and tried to comfort him. At one point, he lost consciousness.
“I was just telling him to stay awake, like making sure he was breathing,” she said. “And just trying to tell him, it’s gonna be OK, like you don’t have to worry and stuff like that.”
Alvarado said a man came along to make a tourniquet to control the hemorrhaging.
“He was able to put my jacket on me and put my belt around my leg so I wouldn’t bleed out,” he said. “They said if that wouldn’t have happened, I would have lost my life.”
He lost so much blood, paramedics had to give him a transfusion. Alvarado spent two days in the hospital and now moves with the aid of a walker. “
I’m grateful to be here, I’m grateful to be alive," he said.
Three days after the shooting, Gainesville police released a surveillance video image of a man who they think is the shooter.
Capt. Kevin Holbrook of the Gainesville Police Department said Thursday he has no updates, and investigators are working to identify the man in the image.
He urges anyone who recognizes the man to call Gainesville police.
Alvarado’s girlfriend has launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for medical expenses. It’s called Stand With Daniel.
“You hear so many stories about stuff like this happening, you never expect for you to be the person,” Alvarado said.
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