THE RESCUER

EMS volunteer played no favorites treating injured

By Jack Brammer

Herald-Leader Staff Writer

Bob Burnett had encounter with survivor years later.

Then: Bob Burnett and his wife, Connie, had eaten supper that Saturday evening in La Grange. On the way back to their home in Campbellsburg, he remarked about "a lot of buses on the interstate" and guessed "they had been to Kings Island."

As a volunteer for the Henry County emergency medical services, Burnett, 43, noted such things.

He was asleep when the emergency call came in about a wreck on Interstate 71 at the 39-mile marker in Henry County.

As he responded, he learned the accident was 21/2 miles farther north, in Carroll County. He was told a bus was involved and went on.

At the scene, Burnett was in charge of setting up two "collection" tents for the survivors and deciding which ones should be airlifted first to the University of Louisville's trauma center.

He later was second-guessed by parents about sending Larry Mahoney, the driver who caused the crash, in the first rescue helicopter.

"I don't care who it is, black or white, whatever, I treat the most severely injured first," Burnett said. "He was talking out of his head. I didn't know if he was drunk or had a bad head injury."

An officer also complained to Burnett about "a little boy who was scared stiff and kept pacing up and down the interstate and wouldn't stay in the group.

"I checked him out and let him be. At least his body wasn't on that bus."

Now: Burnett is retired from a Louisville business and has completely recovered from hip surgery. He has marked 37 years with the Henry County EMS. A police scanner is never far from him.

Four or five years after the Carrollton bus crash, he had a speaking engagement in Elizabethtown about emergency services.

He stopped at a Burger King for a hamburger. The clerk behind the counter told him it was free.

"He said he was the boy I helped that night at the bus crash."