‘I Hope We Learn From the Past’

Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Scott Miller, 38, was driving a 52-foot-long hook-and-ladder truck into violence-torn South-Central Los Angeles on the day the riots started when he was shot in the right cheek. The bullet lodged in his neck and pierced his carotid artery. He later had a stroke from a blood clot and spent nine weeks in the hospital. He spoke about the incident to DEBORAH BELGUM.

I thought I was going to die. I knew I was in real big trouble and that I was hurt real bad. At the time I was thinking, “Who is going to take care of my kids,” because I really didn’t think I was going to make it.

I came back to work six months later. I could barely speak. They gave me a temporary job for one month and then I was assigned to the fire prevention high-rise unit where I have been for the last four and a half years.

I will never go back to firefighting. Somewhere in the injury process, I developed a blood clot and suffered a stroke and paralysis in my left arm and hand.

I would have wanted to do things differently, work as a firefighter. Other than that, I haven’t seen any other major changes for me. I have been lucky to maintain my job. My family has gotten bigger. My son is now 10 and my daughter is 8.

But it is one of those events that happened, is gone and doesn’t come to mind to me. It is not a driving force to me at all.

I hope we learn from past experiences. I know there are a lot of people doing a lot of work to make sure that a riot doesn’t happen again. But I just hope we are finding permanent fixes and not temporary ones. ‘I thought I was going to die. I knew I was in real big trouble and that I was hurt real bad.’