PORT ANGELES — Philip White heard the grinding metal crash of the head-on collision, but he didn’t hear the yelling when he shattered the back window of a flaming Ford Explorer with a rock, crawled inside and handed a baby and a toddler out to safety.
Two days and two sleepless nights after the crash, the Port Orchard man finally heard the people yelling at him, screaming, pleading:
Get away, get away, it’s going to blow!
In a small ceremony Friday at the State Patrol’s Port Angeles Detachment office, ordinary people were recognized for extraordinary acts.
The ceremony was held less than two miles from the still-scorched pavement where three people died July 3 in a two-vehicle crash in front of Dupuis Restaurant at 256861 U.S. Highway 101.
Robert J. Norman, 39, of Port Angeles, Abani Biswas, 43, and his daughter, Ankita, 7, of Beaverton, Ore., died.
Five people survived, some because of rescuers who ran to the crash to help.
“Without their effort, the enormity of the tragedy would have been much greater,” said Lt. Clint Casebolt on Friday.
Saving lives
White received an Award of Merit, signed by State Patrol Chief John Batiste.
Adrian Cushman of Fair Oaks, Calif., also received an Award of Merit.
The citation usually is given to a trooper who has endangered himself to save a life.
“I think this certainly fits,” Casebolt said.
Donald Reed, Jim and Lynn Bucher, Ryan and Jill Wolfe and Russell and Christopher Case received commendations for fighting the fire, tending to the injured and helping remove survivors from the wreckage.
Horrible noise
It all started with a sound, “the most horrible metal crashing noise I’ve ever heard,” White said.
At about 1 p.m., the Biswas family was driving back home to Oregon from a vacation in Victoria.
While traveling eastbound, their 2005 Toyota 4Runner was struck head-on by the 2005 Ford Explorer traveling westbound that had crossed the centerline, the State Patrol reported.
Ericka Larson was driving the Explorer and was thrown from the SUV at impact.
She and Norman were discussing a frustrating business deal right before the crash, she said.
She sustained serious injuries to her legs.
Norman was injured and lost consciousness, White said.
Norman’s and Larson’s two girls, 3-year-old Emily and 1-year-old Allison, were trapped in their car seats.
That’s when those honored Friday sprang into action.
Stopped to help
Donald Reed was nearby when the SUVs crashed and called 9-1-1 and grabbed two fire extinguishers which he emptied on the flames.
Jim and Lynn Bucher were traveling eastbound behind the Biswas’ and came upon the crash immediately after it happened.
The couple helped take Emily and Allison away to safety.
After arriving on the scene, Ryan Wolfe helped move Larson away from the fire and he and Jill Wolfe helped remove the children and comforted Larson.
Russell and Christopher Case, a father and son from Port Angeles, arrived seconds after the collisions and stopped.
Christopher comforted Larson while Russell helped remove victims from the vehicles.
“The efforts made by some put them at greater risk, but the rescue was a community effort and required strangers to come together and work as a team in less than a moment’s notice,” a State Patrol statement said.
“Their heroic actions should not go unrecognized by the community nor this agency.”
Cushman
Cushman was four or five car lengths in front of the crash when the cars collided.
After realizing what had happened, he threw his vehicle in reverse and backed up to the scene, the statement said.
He tried to free the children from the burning car, but then his clothing caught on fire.
He was able to put out the fire on himself, and then returned to help the others.
Cushman could not attend the ceremony.
He is a student at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo.
Charlee Sandell of Sequim accepted the commendation for Cushman, who had been staying with Sandell and her daughter, Harasyn, last summer.
White
White had come to Clallam County when he got a job doing plumbing work on the Sequim Costco, just months after returning from Qatar.
He had taken up residence in an RV park near the crash site.
He heard the crash and sprinted about 200 yards and “decided what I had to do.”
After the sound of the crash, he didn’t hear much of anything else that July afternoon, even when the SUV exploded into flames about 10 or 12 feet from where he stood on U.S. Highway 101.
“A muffled poof,” is all, he said solemnly.
The father of five risked his life to help save two little girls, but he had to make a split-second decision he wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Inside a flaming vehicle about to be engulfed in flames, he was trying to free an unconscious man — Norman — almost twice his size from a seatbelt, and it wasn’t working.
He had to decide.
“This guy, I was his last opportunity to get him out,” White said in a hushed tone.
“I had to cross that bridge, and it was a hard bridge to cross.”
Norman died in the car.
Survivers
Larson is able to walk but is still recovering from her injuries.
On Friday she thanked the people that helped her and her girls.
“Forever, always, you will be my angels and my children’s angels,” Larson said.
Emily, who has been battling a childhood cancer, has been taken off chemotherapy.
“We will just give her a comfortable life,” Larson said.
Alakananda Biswas was severely injured in the crash.
Her son, Abheek, who was 3 years old at the time, was placed into foster care while she recovered.
Kathy Spears, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social and Health Services, said Friday that Alakananda Biswas was transferred to a hospital in the Portland area and Abheek was taken back home by family members.
State Patrol have finished their investigation into the crash and have forwarded the documents to Clallam County Prosecutor Deborah Kelly.
Terrible price
White wore an Air Force Reserve technical sergeant uniform festooned with ribbons at the ceremony.
He had a calm, steady demeanor.
He looked like a hero, but it’s too easy a word, he said. It sounds flippant and conjures images of television stars.
When people ask him about it, when it comes up in conversation, when he is given an award for his acts, it comes back.
It hurts when people make light of it.
So you’re the hero?
“I want to punch them in the face,” he said, his easy smile returning for a second.
Hero doesn’t convey the almost unbearable heaviness he feels.
“It comes at such a terrible price, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody,” White said.
But he’s not sorry for what he did.
“I’d do it all over again.”