Taxi Driver Online

Evening Gazette

August 8, 2006, Tuesday

HEADLINE: Praise for hero cabbie

BYLINE: Simon Haworth

A taxi driver was praised today for helping the victims of the Albert Bridge bus crash.

Mark Brown, 40, drove past the bus seconds before it crashed under the bridge in central Middlesbrough. He was among the first on the scene and used the first aid kit in his taxi to bandage victims. Six people received serious cuts when the Arriva X61 ploughed into the railway bridge on Sunday morning.

Investigations by the police, Arriva and the Vehicle Operation Standards Agency (VOSA) are under way.

Mark bandaged a woman with a badly cut head and then a man also with cuts. The father-of-one also provided a bandage for a 13-year-old with a large cut to his scalp. After the incident Mark, from Cargo Fleet Lane, Middlesbrough, broke down after the trauma of what he had witnessed.

Mark said: "I heard a massive crash and could see the roof being taken off and it smashed to the ground. I phoned 999 and sped straight round and went to the other end of the bridge and blocked the road off. "An elderly woman came out with serious head injuries. "I got a bandage out and wrapped it around her head. Then a man came downstairs and I put a bandage on him."

Mark worked with Cleveland CID officer Det Sgt Ian Craig to help a 13-year-old boy with a large cut to his head. "He was panicking," said Mark. "I gave the CID officer a massive bandage which he placed on the young lad's head. Mark then re-bandaged the woman's head before the emergency services came on the scene. A cordon was placed over the scene and the patients were taken to hospital by ambulance.

Mark went to have a cup of tea and then his emotions overtook him. "I broke down," he said. "Everything just came out." Mark then went to the James Cook University hospital and met the woman whose head he bandaged. Her husband shook his hand and thanked him.

Cllr Barry Coppinger, Middlesbrough Council's executive member with responsibility for community safety, said: "Mark should be commended for showing initiative and a quick response to a very serious situation before the emergency services arrived. He's a credit to the taxi trade and a good example of a public-spirited citizen."
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