When called a hero after helping to save the life of a shooting victim this week, firefighter Casey Dodge shrugged it off, saying it’s all part of his job.

“I think any firefighter that was in my situation would have done the exact same thing,” Dodge said. “My instincts just took over.”  Dodge was off-duty Tuesday night and had stopped at the Spring Valley Market to buy a lottery ticket — a stroke of luck for John Kacir, 27, who was shot outside the market at the same time.

When Dodge heard the gunshot so close to where he was standing in line, he quickly took inventory of what was going on outside before determining it was safe, and rushing to the aid of Kacir, who had been shot in the stomach.

“I kind of flinched at the noise, then I peeked my head outside the store and assessed the situation. He looked at me and told me he had been shot,” Dodge said.

He added that Kacir was stumbling in an effort to get to his vehicle, where his girlfriend was waiting, and she was going to try to take him to a hospital. Dodge said he was lucky that she decided to listen to him when he said that he was a trained paramedic, and that Kacir would be safer remaining at the location.

“I was glad she listened to me and let me work on him,” Dodge said in an interview at Station 22 on Thursday afternoon. “If she had started driving around in circles just to get him to a hospital that couldn’t give him the care he needed, it could have been bad.”

Instead, Dodge went back into the market and asked for some gloves and went to the first aid aisle to grab gauze. He went back to Kacir and applied pressure to the bullet entrance wound and began gathering the vital patient information other responders would need.

He also called Desert Communications directly to report the shooting and alerted them that Kacir would need an air ambulance to take him to a trauma center. That move shaved several minutes off the typical response — minutes that may have been the difference between life and death.

“It’s hard to say when someone is shot whether they are going to make it, but it probably would have been pretty close,” Dodge said. “He was clearly going into shock.”

Deputy Mike New of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Victor Valley station said that Kacir was in critical condition.

No suspects have been identified or apprehended in the shooting, and officials have not released a possible motive behind the incident.