Vicious prank turns to horror, until heroic driver puts out flames with his hands
By PETE DONOHUE and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tyrone Banks, 13, trumpet player at school, narrowly avoided life-threatening injuries after he was set ablaze by firecracker on bus
A Staten Island honor student was set ablaze on a city bus by a firecracker, badly burning him as his screaming classmates leaped out windows.
Tyrone Banks, 13, was saved by brave bus driver Cono Turchio, who beat out the flames with his hands as the bus filled with choking smoke.
"He saved my son's life," Tyrone's grateful father said yesterday.
Tyrone, who is due to undergo painful skin graft surgery today, described for the Daily News yesterday the horror of his Monday afternoon ride aboard the S-42 bus.
A student at Intermediate School 61, Tyrone was riding home when he heard three troublemakers behind him - two girls and a boy - plotting to light a firecracker on the packed bus.
Tyrone, an honor student and trumpet player at the school, moved away from the thugs and was preparing to get off the bus when he felt something hot against the back of his neck.
"They lit up a firecracker, one of those pretty big ones, and it drops down my coat, and I can't get the coat off, and I'm really scared," the teen recalled yesterday from his room at Staten Island University Hospital.
"It didn't hurt - at first. I guess I was too scared to feel it. My coat was burning and it just wouldn't come off," he said. "I ran screaming to the bus driver."
As Tyrone dashed to the front of the bus, about 30 kids jumped out windows, while others cowered in the back.
Driver Turchio, 30, of Staten Island, turned to see Tyrone's coat - and the back of the teen's hair - ablaze.
"Flames were shooting out of the back of his neck," the eight-year Transit Authority veteran said.
"I grabbed him because he was running around. I pulled the back of his jacket, the collar, and reached inside and pulled the firework out. I burned my hand," Turchio said.
But Tyrone's clothes were still on fire. So Turchio ripped off the teen's burning coat, shirt and, finally, the smoldering undershirt.
Turchio then patted out the flames that had crept 2 inches into the boy's hairline.
"The skin was just peeling off him from the top of his back up to lower neck. This kid was in a lot of pain," said Turchio, the father of a year-old girl.
Luckily, the bus was stopped at Brighton Ave. and Jersey St., where police routinely have a patrol when school gets out, so Tyrone was quickly bundled into an ambulance.
That's when the pain hit, the teen said.
"I guess up till then, I was too scared to feel it," Tyrone said.
He is set to have an operation today to graft skin from his thigh onto his damaged neck, left shoulder and back.
He will have to spend another week or more in the hospital to make sure the burns don't get infected, and then more time in rehab. His parents are unsure when he will be able to return to school and resume playing his trumpet in the school's jazz and symphonic bands.
Two of the reckless trio who lighted the firecracker have been suspended from school for 10 days, a Department of Education spokeswoman said. No information was available yesterday on the fate of the third. None has been identified.
While Tyrone's parents are furious at the kids, Turchio is their hero.
"Without him, who knows how much worse the burns would be?" Tyrone's mother, Celina, said.
Originally published on January 8, 2004