Generosity and Acts of Courage Amid Disaster

Moments after he escaped from his own crashed car, Rod Bailey found 3-year-old Lindsay crying for help and strapped into the child’s safety seat of a nearby vehicle. Her father was slowly dying, semi-conscious in the wreckage of the driver’s seat.

As the dust storm raged, Bailey called out to the driver that the child was all right. “Hang in there,” he then yelled. “You’re going to pull through this.”

On Saturday morning, Lindsay’s father was dead and the man who rescued the little girl was still looking after her at a Red Cross shelter where 40 people spent the night after surviving Friday’s massive pile up on Interstate 5.

As Lindsay huddled in a blanket with Bailey and his wife, the girl explained: “They had a crash and daddy was sick.” She had yet to be told of her father’s death. Her mother would soon arrive from Los Angeles to share in her daughter’s grief.

Like Bailey and his wife, Andrea, scores of holiday travelers found themselves stranded in Fresno, recounting the harrowing images of the disaster.

They remembered how motorists emerged from their wrecked cars and worked frantically with paramedics and California Highway Patrol officers to help pull the injured to safety. Some people opened the doors of their motor homes to allow others to take shelter from the driving winds.

“There were people with bandaged arms and heads carrying others around,” Bailey recalled.

Others, however, simply drove off, while a handful took snapshots and aimed video cameras at the carnage.

Some survivors spent Saturday frantically questioning authorities about the fate of loved ones who had disappeared in the confusion of crashes and explosions.

A woman who identified herself only as Esther had still not heard word of her husband more than 24 hours after the accidents.

Esther told rescue workers that she and her husband had been traveling with their three small children when their car crashed. She and the children escaped out the passenger side doors, while her husband walked out from the driver’s seat.

The man disappeared into a dust cloud, quickly followed by the sound of an explosion. “We heard the explosion and hit the ground,” Esther told rescue workers. She had not seen her husband since and he had not yet appeared on a list of victims.

As the night dragged on at a Fresno hospital, Esther turned to another victim, 22-year-old Kuchen Langworthy, who had suffered a broken nose and split lip. “You’re lucky,” she told Langworthy. “I’m just glad I have my kids.”

CHP Officer Bill Beltz speculated that Esther’s husband could be wandering the fields around the highway after suffering a head injury. Or he may have joined the volunteers helping out at the scene.

“So far, nobody knows where he is,” Beltz said.

Dorothy Corless, a mental health nurse, spent the day consoling victims at the shelter, which was set up at a Fresno middle school.

Many victims could not free themselves of the disaster’s images and sounds. One survivor told Corless: “I keep hearing screaming in my ears, I keep hearing screaming in my ears.”

Those who had been separated from families, or who had a seriously injured relative, said they were haunted by strong feelings of guilt, wondering if the disaster might have been averted if they had left home earlier or taken a different route.

“People were thinking about what they could have done and should have done when in reality they probably couldn’t have done anything different,” Corless said.

For many, simply telling a stranger about the accidents was therapeutic.

Bailey and his wife recalled a pleasant drive suddenly interrupted by a series of sandstorms, the last one leaving them blinded. They slammed into the rear of a diesel rig that had swept across the highway diagonally. Bouncing off the truck’s wheels, they were then struck from behind by another vehicle that pushed them out of harm’s way. They later learned the driver of the car was killed.

In the dust storm, the Baileys could hear wrecked cars piling up around them--tires screeching, followed by the sounds of explosions. The high winds blew noxious smoke and dirt into their faces.

Louise Almy, 58, said paramedics who were racing to the scene of one wreck, became trapped in another collision, stepping from their stranded ambulance directly into the scene of the disaster.

The paramedics helped Almy’s 88-year-old mother, Bea Blossom Brady, onto a helicopter to be evacuated. The elderly woman had suffered injuries to her back and neck.

Later, Louise’s husband, Donald, tried to console a 16-year-old girl who had been separated from her parents.

“I know you’re scared,” Donald told the girl. “I’m scared, too.”

Louise said she was proud of her husband for his kind words. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved him as much in the 38 years we’ve been together.”

Harris reported from Fresno. The story was written by Tobar in Los Angeles.