This was published on the groaners listserv. The author is unknown.

A motorcycle patrolman was pursuing a truck along the Pacific Coast Highway, when the truck suddenly braked abruptly to make a turn. The patrolman slammed into the truck’s tailgate, and was seriously injured, rapidly losing blood which was spurting from a severed artery in his right leg.

A motorist who saw the accident, stopped and rushed to the wreckage. He saw the patrolman, pulled off his necktie, and quickly made a tourniquet, slowing and then stopping the bleeding. A paramedic who arrived a few minutes later said that the driver’s rapid response using his tie for a tourniquet had certainly saved the patrolman’s life.

Another patrolman, while driving in the same area, lost control of his car, went over a cliff and crashed into a tree. His right leg was severely smashed and cut, and the blood was flowing profusely.

The same patrolman who was injured in the previous accident, and now in a patrol car, arrived at the scene, applied a tourniquet that stemmed the flow until the paramedics arrived, saving the motorist’s life. As the paramedics removed the injured motorist from the car, the patrolman got a better look at the victim and realized that this was the very same motorist who had saved him five years before.

While being interviewed by a television reporter whose truck at arrived at the accident scene, the patrolman said, “It all goes to prove that … one good tourniquet deserves another.”

Chris Cole added, “I suppose this is only possible if they were both traveling on the same artery!”