Want some Nightmares? - Read these stories.

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Off-duty firefighter to be honored for action at bus crash
by Janet Burkitt - Seattle Times staff reporter

David Birmingham was driving his family downtown for a day of Christmas shopping Nov. 27 when he noticed a cloud rising from the Aurora bridge. The dust literally hadn't cleared from the scene of a fatal Metro bus crash when the Seattle firefighter saw the wreckage of the bus, which had careened off the bridge and landed on the ground 50 feet below.

By the time first-aid units arrived, Birmingham had disentangled a pile of people lying on top of a dying man. He had helped pry open a door to free passengers trapped in the front of the bus, removed a window to allow other passengers to escape and organized the rescue efforts of bystanders.

For his actions, Birmingham was to be one of 24 people to receive lifesaving awards at a ceremony today. The event is part of this year's Governor's Industrial Safety and Health Conference at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.

"I didn't do anything I hadn't done before at car accidents," the Seattle man said of his work after the crash. "I just did a lot more of it."

Colleagues say Birmingham consistently acts with the level-headedness he showed that day. "Even before this thing, if you had asked me about Dave, I'd say I'd work with him anytime, anywhere. He's a very calm, very professional guy," said Seattle fire Lt. Mick Fish, who was on one of the first two fire engines that arrived at the site. "The fortuitous part of having Dave there was that the correct things got done immediately."

The first thing Birmingham did was grab a man who was smoking a cigarette in the middle of the diesel-soaked accident scene and tell him to move. He then began walking around the bus, assessing what needed to be done. Firefighters are supposed to size up the entire situation during a rescue before tending to anyone, in case there are immediate hazards or other victims in greater need of help.

"It's hard to do," said Birmingham, a 10-year veteran of the department. "There was a man trapped in wreckage inside the bus screaming for help, and I had to walk right by him. There was nothing I could do for him without equipment, except tell him I'd be back to help him."

Once he got to the front of the bus, Birmingham saw a man with massive head injuries trapped underneath several people. He removed them, took the man's pulse, and heard his dying breaths. That man was most likely Silas Cool, who fatally shot bus driver Mark McLaughlin before shooting and killing himself. The other casualty in the crash, 69-year-old Herman Liebelt, died in a hospital the next day.

Birmingham, 45, freed one elderly man who was pinned underneath a bus door, and he believes it was Liebelt. "One of the things I was overwhelmed with when I was done was guilt that I couldn't do more," he says. Before rescue crews arrived, "We had to handle people very roughly and quickly in a way we never normally do - we usually have backboards. I felt like I had to apologize to the bystanders, and to the victims that we had treated so roughly."

The next day, Birmingham returned to work. He also had a vivid flashback while doing an interview for national television, and realized he was suffering from post traumatic stress. He stayed home from his job for about two months and had about four months of counseling. Now, he realizes he doesn't owe any apologies for his work that day. "If anything, I'd want to thank those bystanders," he said. "I never found out who they were, but they deserve an award at least as much as me."

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