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A pickup truck involved in a state Thruway crash in DeWitt, after it had been moved from the spot of impact by investigators.

(Courtesy of Tom Buckel)

Often, early in the morning, Tom Buckel will add a thought to Twitter that he hopes will serve as a kind of signpost for his day. Monday, just before he left for a drive to Utica, Buckel stood in the kitchen of his Syracuse home and wrote out this tweet:

"Your mission: one act of kindness today. And excellence in all things."

Within 20 minutes, he'd need to prove he meant it.

Buckel, a former Onondaga County legislator, is now managing attorney for Legal Services of Central New York. He often visits an office in Utica, and he uses the drive as a time of quiet reflection about his family and his work. He was so lost in thought as he drove eastbound Monday, on the New York State Thruway in DeWitt, that it took him an instant to fully register what he'd just witnessed:

A westbound pickup truck, across the median from Buckel, veered off the Thruway and slammed - seemingly at full speed - into the Route 481 bridge, where it crosses the Thruway.

Buckel pulled into the median, stopped his car, and sprinted across the slick and muddy grass, toward the truck. He was aware of others coming behind him. "I ran to do what I could," said Buckel, who looked through a shattered driver's side window and saw a man pinned and unconscious, his head pressed against the steering wheel. Flames were already licking toward the injured man's shoulders, from under the dashboard.

The man wore military fatigues beneath his jacket. One side of the vehicle was pushed against the bridge. The driver's side door was crushed in the fashion of a can that is smashed from the bottom: The upper edge projected out by a few inches, while the base was pushed in, toward the truck. Buckel grabbed the door and started pulling. He was vaguely aware that several others had joined him and were tugging, as well.

The door wouldn't budge.

It was maybe 8:20 a.m.



Kevin Harrigan, a Syracuse adoption lawyer, was also driving Eastbound, on his way to Albany. He was in his car with his legal assistant, Sherry Kline. They were going to meet with a birth mother at an Albany hospital for the powerful moment when she'd sign the papers that allow an adoptive couple to take a baby home.

They looked over. They saw the truck already pressed against the bridge. They realized it had just happened, that emergency crews had yet to arrive.

"I think I'll see this for the rest of my life," Harrigan said.

Like Buckel, Harrigan pulled his car into the median. He and Kline ran to help the little knot of men, maybe two or three, who were already working on the car. Harrigan and Buckel are both lawyers. They have known each other for years.

They looked at each other, dressed for what they expected to be days spent in the office, and said nothing. There was no time.

About five people, by that point, were pulling at the door. It was wedged tight. The flames were at the shoulder of the unconscious man. One of the rescuers, Kline said, ran to his car, found a fire extinguisher, ran back and tried to spray it on the flames.

It was empty.

"I've never felt so helpless," Kline said. "For the rest of my life, I am always going to keep a working fire extinguisher and a crowbar in my car."

The sense of desperation bound them all. "It occurred to me, as we're trying to open (the door), that we're going to have to watch this poor guy burn to death," Harrigan said. A man he described as "a little guy," another rescuer, climbed onto the roof of the truck and started pushing against the lip of the damaged door with his feet. The flames grew more intense. Someone screamed that the car was liable to explode.

They already knew it. They stayed put, and kept pulling.

Five minutes into the attempt - "Maybe more," Buckel said - a big man appeared behind them, as if out of nowhere, shouting: "That's my captain! We've been through too much together! We have to save him!" He was also a soldier, who clearly knew the driver. Harrigan estimates that he stood 6-foot-5, and he "brought his heart and soul" to the rescue, Buckel said.

Whether the two men were traveling together, how the second man realized what had happened to his friend, Buckel, Harrigan and Kline simply don't know.

But the big man added his muscle, his commanding presence, to the scene. "Don't you leave him!" he screamed at everyone there. The man on top of the vehicle kept pushing with his feet. The smell of smoke, of fumes, was sickening. Someone, another civilian, showed up with a fire extinguisher that worked. He did his best, through the space of the shattered window, to keep the flames at bay.

Minute by minute, without much hope, they kept pulling at the door.

Until it opened.

Their elation quickly plummeted. The dashboard had pressed forward, toward the man. His legs appeared to be broken. But he was still trapped, pinned in the truck by his seat belt. The flames had started to catch onto his jacket, near his neck. Kline reached in and did her best to pat them out with her hands.

"The emotion and power of this (military) guy was just palpable," Buckel said. The man had a knife in his pocket. He reached in, sawed through the seat belt, and the men and Kline dragged the unconscious driver out of the car. The military rescuer "was cursing, he wouldn't let go of his hand," Buckel said. "He immediately knew what had happened to (his friend's) legs."

The little group began dragging the man away from the car.

When they were about 15 or 20 feet away, Harrigan said, there was a blast of heat so intense it knocked Buckel on his face. The interior of the truck was engulfed by flames. The driver was safely away, laid gently on the ground behind the protection of a concrete abutment, while his friend held his hand and wept above him, vowing that he wouldn't leave.

"The first explosion? Probably 30 seconds, 45 seconds after we got him out," Buckel said.

Memories, at that point, become muddled: A man arrived who said he had medical knowledge. Some witnesses say he was a doctor; others an emergency medical technician. Police and firefighters arrived at the scene. The driver, later identified as Timothy Neild, 33, of Schenectady County, was in critical condition this morning at Upstate University Hospital, according to a nursing supervisor.

At the scene, after Neild was safely away from the burning truck, another man told Harrigan he'd better move his car before someone ran into it. Harrigan and Kline got in and kept going to Albany, their business there too important to blow off. Their thoughts, the whole way, were with the injured driver.

They finally walked into an Albany hospital - caked with mud - where a birth mom looked at them, astounded.

"I know," Harrigan told her. "It looks like I just crawled under a truck."

As for Buckel, he was stunned, overwhelmed. He stayed and told investigators what he'd seen, and he eventually wandered back toward his car. Already, he was thinking of all that happened, how every person on the scene was meant to be there, how different it could have been if another minute had gone by, how "fate means everything, and we never really have control of our lives."

He got to his car. It was still running.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard. Read more of his columns at www.syracuse.com/kirst, email him at skirst@syracuse.com or send him a message on Facebook or Twitter