Iconic images of Carlos Arredondo made their way across the world after the Boston Marathon blasts.
In one photo, Arredondo appears to be pinching closed a severed artery protruding from the victim’s thigh, stanching the flow of blood from a torn and shattered leg, according to NBC News.
"I kept talking to him. I kept saying, 'Stay with me, stay with me,'" Arredondo told the Portland, Maine, Press Herald.
In another photo (below), he is holding an American flag.
"We pretty much start putting pieces of clothing on people's legs, bleeding. It was horrifying seeing limbs al over the sidewalk, just very sad, very sad," he said.
Arredondo and John Mixon were both supporting the Marines running on behalf fallen soldiers. Arredondo is known to South Floridians.
In 2004, Marines arrived at his Hollywood home to tell him of his son Marine Lance Cpl. Alexander S. Arredondo's death in Iraq. The father then grabbed a can of gasoline and a torch from his garage, climbed inside the Marines' van and doused it and ignited it, severely burning himself in the process, The Associated Press reported at the time.
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In 2011, Arredondo’s second son, Brian, took his own life as U.S. troops were withdrawing from the war, according to NBC News.
He has been a full-time war protester, who shares his concern of the human price of war, according to The New York Times.
After the explosions in Boston, Arredondo and Mixon quickly went out to help the victims, according to the newspaper report.
“When we got over there, it was just a pile of bodies - people with legs missing,” Mixon told the newspaper. “It was absolutely like a war scene. This was worse, because it was all innocent people, just defenseless. They were just lying in a pile, gunpowder all over them, burnt.”
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The two men ripped through the fence in order to reach the victims.
“We start putting pieces of clothing in peoples’ legs because they were bleeding,” Arredondo told NBC News. "It’s very sad.”
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Photo Credit: AP