A quick-thinking bouncer saved a man’s life by tying her ID badge lanyard round his leg as a tourniquet.
Territorial Army recruit Catherine Lorimer, 31, from Dundee, was returning from a nightclub shift in Montrose with six colleagues when she came across a scene of carnage at Salmond’s Muir junction on the A92.
Former soldier Greig Yorke, 39, from Carnoustie, lay in a heap at the roadside after a collision with a car took off the bottom of his left leg.
The team of door supervisors from Specific Security Ltd swung into action, with Catherine, who has extensive first aid training, leading the charge.
She said: “I saw the car in the road and I ran up to have a look. As soon as I saw him I knew he had been hit really bad.
“He was lying there with one shoe beside him and no foot at the bottom of the left trouser leg. I asked for somebody’s belt for a tourniquet but ended up using the cord from my badge to tie it.”
Mr Yorke, a father-of-two who served in Bosnia, needed emergency surgery to amputate his leg following the incident at 3am on Sunday.
He was walking home from Arbroath after a night out with colleagues from Tayside Contracts when the accident happened.
Shona Fletcher, 30, another steward at the Yard nightclub in Montrose, said Catherine “jumped into action,” but was initially refused a belt by a man who stood at the scene.
She added: “I was holding a torch and shining it down on the leg. He was screaming quite a lot and going in and out of consciousness.”
Catherine cradled a mobile phone between her shoulder and neck as she took instruction from the 999 operator while simultaneously attending to the life-threatening injuries.
Mr Yorke, who has two daughters aged 13 and four, is also understood to have suffered a broken nose.
He was taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and is expected to be allowed home this week.
His mother Jane Burgess, 68, thanked Catherine and the team for the quick thinking that saved her son’s life.
She said: “I think there were three people who put a tourniquet on his leg and I’m just thankful that they helped.
“He’s lost his left leg below the knee. They couldn’t get the bleeding stopped in the leg so they had to do emergency surgery and tomorrow they are going to tidy it up.
“He’s always been a fighter and a hard-working person. He will be OK because I’ll make sure he is. But I am just devastated, as is his wife.”
Mr Yorke served for 10 years in the Royal Engineers and was in Bosnia as a tank driver.
Catherine, who has trained with 225 Medical Regiment in Dundee since 2010, did not find out about her patient’s military background until Monday afternoon.
She said: “When I found out he was a soldier I just started shaking. It’s like treating one of your own.
“I think I just went into first aid mode. It must’ve only happened around five minutes before we got there so I was able to stop the bleeding before it got too bad.
“It was not what I was expecting on the way home from work.”