It’s funny, in a decidedly not funny way sometimes, how the timing and opportunities in life combine to do nothing or to turn the world upside down. A person misses a plane or barely catches it and it crashes — or doesn’t — or drives through an intersection just in time to miss — or hit — a car running a stop sign. Five minutes, one minute, even a few seconds can change everything. Many times the near misses are invisible, while the hits can be significant if not life-altering.
Anthony Kirkpatrick and Carl Smith now know the routine in a very personal way. Kirkpatrick, an officer with the Pine Bluff Police Department, was driving on Dollarway Road in late August when he somehow became distracted and his cruiser struck a school bus and caught fire. He was trapped, with what has been described as low odds of survival, given the circumstances.
Then along came a knight in shining armor, also known as a retired school teacher and coach and now a Pine Bluff bus driver, who used a fire extinguisher to keep things from getting worse. We don’t mention his name in that sentence because he left the scene after saving the day without letting anyone know who he was.
“We owe him a debt of gratitude … and a new fire extinguisher,” police wrote before asking the unknown man to please come forward.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Finally, he did come forward and was honored. At a city council meeting, Smith got a plaque and a lot of smiles and congratulations and hugs. Perhaps more moving was that Kirkpatrick, who was in attendance via Zoom from his hospital bed in Little Rock, thanked Smith for saving his life, tearing up at one point by the enormity of what Smith had done.
“There will never be enough words to say how much you mean to me,” Kirkpatrick said. “I’m truly grateful for your quick thinking and your help.”
Smith said he had not met that day with the intention of being a hero but was simply doing his job when he saw the accident and instinctively took action.
“I was driving my regular route,” he said, referring to his bus driving job, “and doing things that I do every day … and it just so happened I had to take some action. I couldn’t get him out of the car so the next thing was to take away the threat and that was the fire and so I got the fire extinguisher and extinguished the fire.”
And then away he went as if that was all in a day’s work.
Yes, life is always ready with surprises. A distracted driver rear-ends a stopped vehicle. Happens all of the time. Trapping the driver. Which is rare. A fire starts. Rarer still. Death or awful injuries just seconds away. Truly, a worst-case scenario. And then Carl Smith shows up, someone who has the wherewithal, not to mention a ready fire extinguisher at hand, and the courage to do what needs to be done. The odds of all that happening? Well, let’s just say Officer Kirkpatrick knows how lucky he is.