Here's another
good reason to carry a pocketknife. It's from the New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune:
Track hand cited for heroism
Sunday, December 17, 2006
By Bob Fortus
Staff writer
Bubba Beck, who works on the starting-gate crew at the Fair Grounds, is a hero, whether he's comfortable with the description or not.
Last spring in Baltimore, Beck rescued two children from a burning car. His quick action earned him the White Horse Award, presented by the Race Track Chaplaincy of America during Breeders' Cup week for the most heroic act this year by a racing person on behalf of humans or horses.
"I have two kids," Beck said. "Everyone says hero this or hero that. You always tell your kids to do the right thing. I wanted to do the right thing."
After finishing a long day with the Pimlico gate crew putting new doors on the starting gate for the Preakness, he was driving on a busy street when a motorcyclist recklessly zoomed past him. The motorcycle slammed into the passenger side of a car crossing the street.
"I stopped, and another guy stopped," Beck said. "The first thing I did was run to the guy. He'd slid into the gutter. There was nothing I could do for him."
The man was dead, and his bike burst into flames. When the fire spread to the car, pedestrians on the scene "broke and ran," Beck said. But he and the other driver who had stopped stayed to help.
That other man helped two adults -- the children's aunt and uncle -- out of the front of the car while Beck tried to open the back door to reach a crying girl and baby boy. "It was hot," he said. "I broke out the window and pulled the door open. By then, the ceiling was on fire in the car. You could hear the gas bubbling in the tank. The little girl says, 'I don't want to die like this.' I said: 'You won't die, baby. Grab my neck.'
He cut the baby loose from the seat with a pocketknife and picked him up. "I grabbed the girl on my hip," Beck said. "The baby was under my shirt. I was carrying him like a football."
As he ran, the car exploded, and the force knocked Beck and the children to the ground. The girl had a broken wrist -- from the accident, not the fall -- and the baby wasn't injured, Beck said. Beck had two pieces of glass in his arm from breaking open the window, but wasn't injured seriously.
His award brought Beck a check for $5,000, of which he and his wife, Stacie, contributed 10 percent to the chaplaincy, and a trophy. "I didn't know if I had what it took," he said. "The Lord tests you all the time. I'd have to look at those kids every day if I'd let them burn up."
Another reward Beck received was hearing Stacie say, "I married the right man," he said. "When they gave me that reward, and she was looking at me, that was the crowning moment in my life," he said.