SAN FRANCISCO — When the gunshots rang out, Sgt. Joelle Harrell wasn’t sure if she’d heard them correctly. Maybe it was just skateboarders and the sound of their boards on the pavement is bouncing off the buildings, she thought.
It wasn’t.
As she called for backup and ran towards the gunfire, bystanders fled in the opposite direction: “I think when they saw my reaction was to stop, look and then continue running towards them, I freaked them out. So, they started screaming and ran,” she said.
Harrell met up with a second officer before splitting up as they looked to neutralize the situation — that’s when she saw a man’s head with blood dripping down his face duck behind a car.
Slowly making her way to the vehicle, Harrell saw the man sitting on the ground, staring at the blood on his hands.
“Hey, are you OK?” she asked him, cautiously. “It’s the police.”
Kneeling in front of him, she noticed a bullet hole in his chest: “Oh no,” she said, and immediately applied pressure to the wound with her hand.
“What happened?” she asked.
“That guy tried to rob me,” he said, giving her and a backup officer a description of the assailant, which they immediately communicated to responding units.
As Harrell was working to manage the scene and maintain situational awareness, the man attempted to tell her who he was: Ricky Pearsall, a rookie with the San Francisco 49ers who had yet to take a snap in a real game after being selected in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft in April.
Harrell attempted to calm Pearsall down as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, but his agitation and fear was causing him distress, she said.
“At first he wasn’t listening, and I could feel his body changing,” she said. “I could feel his body moving and his impatience. I grabbed hold of him and said, ‘Listen to me, I need you to trust me. I know you don’t know me.’”
“Am I going to die?” he asked her. “No, it’s not your time,” she said, a reassurance that immediately began haunting her the moment she uttered the words.
“I had no business saying that,” she said. “I am not a medical professional. I didn’t know what type of injury he had. It was just this overwhelming feeling that came over me that made me say these things to him.”
Even in similar situations, Harrell said she had never promised a positive outcome to a victim in her care.
“I’ve never told anyone who is injured, ‘It’s not your time, you’re going to be OK. Trust me, God is with us.’ I’ve never said that before. I told him, ‘Be strong, Ricky, like when you’re on the field – focus.’”
When the ambulance arrived, paramedics loaded Pearsall and transported him to the hospital. The gunshot wound to the chest did not hit any vital organs, and he was released within a few days.
Pearsall: ‘I’m thankful it was you’
During the 49ers season home opener on Sept. 10, Harrell was honored, along with surgeon who operated on Pearsall at the hospital, for her response that fateful day.
“It could have been any one of us working that day that came to Ricky’s side, but I really believe it was meant for me to be there,” she said. “And he, too, has said, ‘I’m thankful it was you.’”
As a lifelong 49ers fan, which was instilled in her at a young age by her father, the on-field moment of recognition was unforgettable: “It will always hold a special place in my heart; I feel profoundly honored and grateful for the experience,” Harrell shared.
On Oct. 20, less than two months after the shooting, Pearsall made his NFL debut at Levi’s Stadium against the Kansas City Chiefs, a shining moment for him, and a gratifying one for Harrell.
“To see him look and move as if nothing ever happened to him, I have this huge sense of being proud of him,” she said. “Proud that he is healthy and that he was able to overcome this traumatic situation that happened to him and what he was faced with in just seconds.”
