Gunshot Victim's Girlfriend Says She Used His Belt as Tourniquet After Attempted Bucktown Carjacking

Hartel says neighbors have complained to the city about this corner for six months after the street light burned out

Two juveniles are charged after an attempted carjacking and shooting in a Chicago neighborhood and police say they're still looking for the two other suspects.

The four suspects, wearing masks, shot Kyle Garchar at the corner of McLean and Hoyne on Tuesday around 9 p.m. while he was working on his car, police said. Garchar and his girlfriend say they've complained to the city for months about their neighborhood to try to prevent a crime like this.

"All they said was, 'Keys! Keys! Give me the keys,'" Garchar told NBC 5 from his hospital bed. "They hit me in the face and they were like ‘hey, give us the keys!' and I didn’t know where the keys were."

He said he's grateful to be recovering from just one gunshot wound to his leg. He said he thought the attackers would keep shooting and kill him.

“I was thinking 'Oh my God I just got shot!' then I rolled over and started crawling away and was thinking 'Oh my God! Am I going to die? Are they going to shoot me again?' and the one guy came back and hit me in the face again," he said.

Neighbors heard the gunshot and called 911 as the attackers ran off with the victim's money - who they left bleeding in the street.

Ellen Hartel is Garchar's girlfriend.

“When I opened the door I could hear Kyle screaming for me," she said. "So I ran across the street, he had already taken his belt off so I just made a tourniquet around his leg."

Hartel says neighbors have complained to the city about this corner for six months after the street light burned out.

They say the darkness gave these criminals an opportunity to attack.

“My boyfriend, Kyle, called the alderman’s office yesterday and said ‘Hey I was shot right under there and it was really dark. Can you do something about that?’ and they came out and fixed it last night," Hartel said. "So, it takes somebody almost dying for them to fix it. But I guess it’s good because now it’s lit."

Garchar hopes to get out of the hospital before his birthday next Tuesday.

He's also started a GoFundMe page to help pay his medical bills.

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