Bystander Rescues Man From Plane That Crashed
Published: May 23, 2007
Demetric Higdon was on a lunch break Friday near Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport when he heard the sput-sput-sputter of an airplane engine and thought, “That ain’t good.”
Higdon and his three co-workers saw the plane - a Lake 250 amphibian that took off at 11 a.m. - careen into power lines and nosedive into a ditch near a busy intersection.
So Higdon, a custom door builder, figured, “Maybe I should do something.”
He ran toward the wreckage.
Seconds later, sparks flew out of the downed power lines. Higdon leapt over them.
When he got to the plane, the cockpit was filled with smoke, so he closed his eyes and reached blindly inside.
Pilot Mark Sticht coughed and stumbled away, but an elderly passenger couldn’t get out. Higdon grabbed the man, lifted him onto his shoulders and dragged him to safety.
Just then, fire broke out inside the plane.
Higdon, who co-workers said is a quiet guy, had helped Norvall Dawson, a 76-year-old Cortez resident, get out of the plane
“I ran over to him and just kinda wiggled him a little bit,” Higdon, 32, said Friday afternoon amid a crowd of gawkers who lined the office plazas near the crash site on 15th Street East, north of Tallevast Road. “I wiggled him and wiggled him, and he kinda fell into my arms. So I put him on my shoulders and carried him away.”
Both Dawson and Sticht, 46, who runs Advanced Computer Systems near the airport, were hospitalized Friday afternoon with neck and back injuries. They could not immediately be reached; both men were expected to survive.
Officials say Sticht was flying under visual flight rules. He did not turn in a flight plan. Friends did not know the destination of Sticht, who has held a private pilot license since 1997, but they said he often took family members on weekend jaunts in the airplane.
“He loved flying,” said Debbie Shaffer, the office manager of a wheelchair company next door to Sticht’s computer business. “More than anything, he loved that plane. Now look at it.”
The red-striped aircraft was covered in purple foam - a flame retardant used to put out fires - and was thoroughly crunched in the accident. Aviation inspectors arrived in the early afternoon to look for clues to the crash.
Officials say that seconds after taking off from Runway 04, on the north side of the airport, the plane started making strange noises, and Sticht made a mayday call to air traffic controllers.
Perhaps 100 feet above 15th Street East, Sticht made a turn and hit a pole. Witnesses say the plane spun in the air, ripped through the power lines and careened into the street.
For Higdon, the brush with bravery brought an unexpected date with celebrity. He was interviewed for a live TV segment, got hugs from passers-by and earned praise from law enforcement officials.
Hours later, though, Higdon realized he hadn’t eaten lunch and needed to call his mother.
“I gotta call my momma,” he said, “and tell her to watch TV. She’s gonna think I’m famous.”
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