Rescuing officer worried there could be children inside burning minibus crash on LIE

October 9, 2015 by ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO / anthony.destefano@newsday.com

Off-duty NYPD transit Officer Christopher Canale took this photo after he helped a driver and aide get out safely from a burning school minibus on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015, on the Long Island Expressway in Manorville. (Credit: Christopher Canale)

When off-duty NYPD transit officer Christopher Canale came across a burning minibus Thursday afternoon on the Long Island Expressway in Manorville his first worry was that there might be children aboard.

"I got kids of my own and my biggest concern was that there were children on the bus," Canale told reporters Friday as he recounted how he rescued two people from the burning vehicle at the westbound Exit 70 on the LIE at around 1:30 Thursday afternoon.

The quick-thinking officer, who was actually on vacation and returning with his wife and children from a shopping trip at the Tanger Outlet, stopped his car on roadway shoulder and ran up to the bus as it started to get engulfed by flames.

Hearing someone screaming from the front of the bus, Canale, who lives with Farmingville, found the driver pinned behind the steering wheel. Police said the bus had rear-ended a box truck which had broken down in the right lane.

The driver said there was an aide in the back of the bus and Canale went and found a woman who he helped out of the vehicle. She had some blood on her face and seemed a bit disoriented, remembered Canale.

Turning his attention to the pinned driver, Canale said he grabbed the man by his arm and was able to pull him out.

Once Canale and the two bus passengers were clear, the vehicle became engulfed in flames, he remembered.

"I did what any cop or anybody in general would do," said Canale, father of two boys ages 4 and 2.

"Chris does great work on duty and off," said a proud transit bureau chief Joseph Fox.

Canale has two brothers, including a twin, who are police officers.

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