Six killed in Krakow market square shooting; surgeons halted bleeding with bare hands

Six people were killed and 16 wounded after a shooting in Krakow's market square on Saturday, with Poland's National Public Prosecutor's Office launching a terrorism-unit investigation into the attack.

Among the dead were four Polish nationals, one British man and one person of undisclosed nationality. Among the wounded are Senior Police Constables Jakub Kulik and Artur Morański. Three additional bodies were found in the alleged gunman's apartment, identified by police as the suspect's parents and sister.

Two surgeons who happened to be eating lunch nearby — Professor Michal Pędziwiatr and Dr Mateusz Wierdak — ran to the scene when Pędziwiatr's son alerted them to the shooting. Pędziwiatr, head of General, Oncological, Metabolic and Emergency Surgery at the University Hospital in Krakow, described how Wierdak worked on a police officer shot in the chest: "He, to put it colloquially, stuffed all the bandages into [the police officer's] chest and stuck his hands in." Pędziwiatr said that if not for that intervention, "I don't know how things would have turned out, as there was a long wait for the ambulance."

Pędziwiatr also treated the apparent attacker. "When it comes to saving lives, it doesn't matter who is who," he told local outlet Fakt. He called John Paul II Hospital to arrange the officer's transfer, specifying its Department of Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery as offering "the best chance of survival" for a chest wound of that kind.

Separately, six Dublin Civil Defence volunteers who were in Krakow on a city break assisted injured people in the aftermath, providing CPR and haemorrhage control, according to officer James McConnell, who spoke to RTÉ News.