Back From the Brink : Riots: In his first public comments since being shot in the face, firefighter says that he isn’t bitter and that he takes things one day at a time. He singles out co-workers for special praise.

His voice reduced to a coarse whisper, his left arm partially paralyzed and a small-caliber bullet still lodged in his neck, Los Angeles Firefighter Scott Miller rose from his hospital bed Wednesday and recounted the hellish night that nearly cost him his life while trying to douse flames during this city’s worst civil unrest.

In his first public comments since he was shot in the face by an unknown gunman April 29, Miller told a phalanx of reporters at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center that he is not angry or bitter, adding that he is recovering quickly and hopes to someday return to work at Fire Station 35 in Los Feliz.

“It doesn’t serve any purpose to be resentful,” said Miller, a 12-year Fire Department veteran, who was the only member of official forces critically injured in the riots. “I focused on the things that were going to make me healthy again.”

Dressed in new white tennis shoes, blue jeans and a sweat shirt with LAFD stenciled on the chest, Miller appeared slightly embarrassed by all the attention. He spoke in strained tones and had difficulty swallowing each time he sipped water from a plastic cup. He said he expects to be released from the hospital Friday, but will continue receiving therapy to regain feeling in his tongue and left hand.

“I’m taking it one day at a time,” said Miller, who had been studying to be a captain before the riots and will soon receive his promotion, according to fire officials.

Like most Los Angeles residents, Miller said, he was watching TV after the not guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case. By the time he was behind the wheel of his 52-foot-long hook-and-ladder, maneuvering down smoke-filled streets, he felt considerable apprehension.

“I knew we were going up against something we really were not at all ready to experience,” Miller said. “It was really hard to believe what was actually happening.”

As he approached the corner of Western Avenue and 31st Street a dark Chevy Blazer or Ford Bronco, with its headlights off, came cruising alongside. A gun was stuck out the window, aiming at the firetruck--the most convenient symbol of authority amid the chaos. A single shot blasted into Miller’s right cheek.

“I remember hearing a bang, seeing a flash, my head falling on the steering wheel,” Miller said. The bullet slashed a carotid artery, restricting the blood flow to his brain. There was no pain, he said, but he was aware that his left side had gone completely numb. “I knew what happened to me right away.”

As he struggled to maintain consciousness, his thoughts traveled to his late brother, Rob, a municipal power company employee who died in a work-related accident several years ago.

“What was going through my mind was: Who’s going to take care of my family? Who’s going to take care of my kids?” said Miller, who lives in the San Fernando Valley with his wife, Kathi, and two children, ages 3 and 5. “I knew how hard it had been for my brother’s wife and kids.”

Miller, 33, who has another brother who is a Los Angeles police sergeant, remained in intensive care for about five weeks, fed by a tube in his stomach. On Monday, he had his first taste of solid food--”a big improvement over the other alternative,” he said. Thanks to about five hours of daily physical therapy, he has almost complete use of his left leg.

He thanked his family and the public for their support, adding that a personal visit from President Bush had been “a real morale booster.” But he saved special praise for his colleagues in the Fire Department, some of whom even went to his home on weekends to help finish a remodeling project he had started before the riots.

“When I started to get down,” he said, “there was always somebody there to back me up.”

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