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The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) in Buffalo, NY, and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) recently honored operators for their heroic efforts in saving lives while on the job.

The NFTA Board of Directors on July 26 recognized Richard Lucas, a three-year bus driver, for alerting 10 people, members of two families, that their home was on fire.

Lucas was heading to his first stop of the morning on July 12 when he saw smoke coming from the rear of the house. He parked the bus and banged on the front door to wake the inhabitants, waited to make sure everyone got out safely—then got back on board his bus and returned to his regular service.

The residents of the house included a woman living with her three children and a teenage nephew, who lived upstairs, and a husband, wife, and three children living downstairs,

According to NFTA spokesperson C. Douglas Hartmeyer, Lucas “told me, ‘I just did what I did to do what I did.’ He did what he did because it was the right thing to do. Then, he got back on the bus and continued his run. We’re very proud of him.”

Lucas said he does not consider himself a hero, however; he was only doing what he thought was right.

Also on July 26, MARTA General Manager and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Beverly A. Scott honored rail operator Ayana Dunlap-Bell and passenger Samuel White Jr. for their efforts in saving a woman who had fallen onto the tracks at the Medical Center Station.

MARTA surveillance video of the July 12 incident shows Addie Norfleet, who is legally blind, walking toward the edge of the platform at Medical Center and, not realizing she had reached the edge, stepping over—just as a train appeared outside the station.

White waved his arms to alert Dunlap-Bell to stop. He then jumped onto the tracks and, with the help of others on the platform, rescued Norfleet.

“Somebody had to make a move,” White told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I just couldn’t just sit there and watch a lady get mangled like that in the tracks. In my mind, I just had to get the lady out of that situation.”

“[Norfleet] was already on the tracks when I came into the station—I saw [White],” Dunlap-Bell said. “I mean, there were other people on the tracks jumping around, and that caused me to slow down even further ... but I zeroed in on him and he pointed down to the tracks, and that’s when my attention focused in on her. It just kind of went at warp speed, and the train stopped.”

NFTA bus driver Richard Lucas, second from right, receives recognition for rescuing 10 people from a house fire from agency representatives, from left, Executive Director Lawrence M. Meckler; Eunice A. Lewin, chair of the Surface Transportation Committee; and acting Chairman Henry M. Sloma.	Dr. Beverly Scott, center, MARTA general manager and CEO, introduces Samuel White Jr. and Ayana Dunlap-Bell, who worked together to rescue a woman who fell from a station platform onto the tracks.

 

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