A Hero's Account: One Life Saved Amidst a Devastating Taiwan Bus Crash

Recounting the harrowing experience of a firefighter who battled against impossible odds to rescue a survivor from a tragic accident.

“The interior was pitch black. We shouted for over ten minutes before hearing a faint cry for help. The casualties were immense,” recalls Lin Hsin-fu, the Captain of the Pingxi Fire Station in New Taipei City. The tour bus had collided at high speed, and most of the passengers were either unconscious or deceased. "I only managed to rescue one person; the rest were bodies."

Entering the Bus: An Eerie Silence

At the time, Lin Hsin-fu was a team leader at the Hengke Fire Station. He and his team arrived at the accident scene approximately five minutes after receiving the report. The bus had crashed through a guardrail and was lying on its side along a hillside. It was drizzling. Peering inside through the shattered windshield, he noticed that neither the driver nor the tour guide were in their seats, and the interior seemed empty. "The scene was eerily silent; there was almost no sound of people," he remembers.