By ANGELA MARSHALL
Hero passenger from Baldwin steers 20 to safety
A Long Island Bus carrying 20 passengers careened off Jerusalem Avenue, crossed a field and narrowly escaped hitting the rear of a North Merrick home when its driver suffered a fatal heart attack shortly before 8 A.M. Tuesday morning.
A quick-thinking passenger from Baldwin is credited with grabbing the steering wheel and maneuvering the Route N54 bus off the road where an overpass of the Southern State Parkway loomed up ahead.
Eleven passengers who were injured in the accident were sent to Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow for treatment. According to Shelley Lotenberg, the medical center's spokesperson, the driver, David Wiggins, 37 from Freeport, was pronounced dead at 8:45 A.M. and the passengers were treated and released.
Eileen Kaercher, of Crest Road East, said she was startled by a loud bang just before 8 A.M. that sounded "like thunder." She ran to the back of her home to see a bus speeding toward her.
Ms. Kaercher's first instinct was to save her son who was asleep in an upstairs bedroom at the back of the house. "I just reacted," she said.
"I was in my bedroom sleeping when my mom came in yelling 'get up there's a bus in the backyard coming at the house,'" said Peter, 18, Ms. Kaercher's youngest son. "My bedroom's in the back of the house. Another four or five feet and I would have been dead."
The bus finally came to rest two feet from the back door and three inches from a gas barbecue grill, which family members fear would have ignited and taken their lives if struck. Ms. Kaercher credits their safety to an awning that was crumpled in the accident. "I believe that awning is the only thing that saved [the bus] from hitting the house."
'Hero' of the day
If not for the actions of a passenger on the bus many more lives could have been lost, according to sources at the scene.
Shederick Lawrence, of Baldwin, grabbed the wheel when he saw the bus speeding out of control toward the Southern State Parkway overpass just east of the site of the incident on Jerusalem Avenue.
After trying unsuccessfully to move the driver's foot, Mr. Lawrence turned the bus into a fence toward a field where it traveled several yards before hitting the Kaercher's awning. "Thank God he was on that bus," said Ms. Kaercher. "He was the hero of the day. They would have been bringing in body bags [if not for him] because it would have hit the bridge."
Ms. Kaercher said that Mr. Lawrence was visibly shaken after the accident and kept saying "'I should have done something more.'"
"Obviously it's a tragic accident," said Frank Ryan, chief administrative operating officer for Long Island Bus/MTA "Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of the bus driver and the passengers."
Ms. Kaercher's other son Rich, 20, said he was at work when the call came from his brother. At first, he said, he thought it was just a practical joke until his mother got on the phone. "I told her I'd be there in two minutes."
When he approached the block and saw all the police cars and ambulances he said, "I didn't know if people were alive or dead. There was just too much going on."
Throughout the day police and other agencies worked to stabilize the area and remove the bus.
