OTTAWA — Capt. Jim Andrews started his 24-hour shift Wednesday morning in the bay of the fire station waiting on a mechanical fix for his truck.

A firefighter for 25 years and father of two, he heard a call come in for a motor vehicle collision around 8:50 a.m. and then saw a police cruiser and the paramedic unit that shares space in his station take off.

The truck was technically out of service because of the maintenance work, but once completed, Andrews got on the air to let dispatch know that pump 44 was available.

You won’t recognize Andrews, but the city knows his voice.

He was the first firefighter on scene at the fatal collision between OC Transpo bus 76 and Via Rail passenger train 51 near Fallowfield Station. It’s his voice assessing the scene, delivering the tragic news of the multiple code blacks and putting into action a plan that saw the city respond in what many say is the most professional, remarkable service they could have expected.

On Tuesday night, hours after the collision, still in the middle of his shift, Andrews hadn’t heard the audio of the 911 response to the collision obtained by the Citizen. But, he didn’t need to. He remembered every word.

The truck carrying his four-person crew left the station at 1075 Greenbank Rd. headed toward the Transitway.

The train had come to a complete stop and a police vehicle and paramedic unit were headed in its direction.

Andrews decided to go forward towards the bus, approaching from the rear, which he could see sitting at the level crossing.

“On arrival, that’s the audio that you’re hearing. That’s my initial size-up.”

Before his team saw the front end of the bus, before Andrews described it as “missing” to dispatch, he could see multiple injured victims on the ground and several people who were dead.

When he got on the bus, it was virtually empty.

He saw an OC Transpo employee who had rushed onto scene to help passengers on the second level of the double-decker bus. Andrews asked the employee to stay with the uninjured passengers in the event that their status changed.

He then left the bus and took up a position on the train tracks — where he could see all of the victims and all of the crews.

It was imperative that he stepped back. He couldn’t afford to get tunnel vision on one injured person and risk ignoring others.

The now well-heard calm counting of casualties was Andrews assessing the situation in the way he’s most familiar — small incidents with minor injuries.

He was trying to get an accurate number of patients to dispatch and approaching EMS units. But once he started counting, he realized the number was too high.

“I took my finger off the mike,” he said. This was a mass casualty incident. “Those are words you’re only going to hopefully say once in your career.”

His training kicked in and there was help everywhere across every emergency service.