Bus driver was a hero

Duck and scatter - that's the instinctive response most people might have when caught in the crossfire of gun-toting thugs.

But SEPTA driver Malcolm McLaughlin is not most people.

When bullets started flying outside his bus early yesterday after he stopped to pick up a passenger in Olney, McLaughlin hit the gas pedal, flipped on the vehicle's emergency lights and delivered his terrified passengers to safety.

Even though he'd caught a bullet in the back.

"I wanted to get us out of the line of fire," said McLaughlin, 44. "The only way we could escape was to drive the bus."

As the veteran driver recovered in his Mayfair home last night, he was being hailed as a hero by citizens sick of the epidemic of violence bloodying Philadelphia's streets.

McLaughlin was the third bystander injured by gunfire in the city in a spate of shootings from Wednesday afternoon until early yesterday. A passenger on his bus received a bullet wound to the hand.

And a cashier in a Grays Ferry grocery was injured yesterday afternoon when bullets that teenage thugs traded outside the market smashed through a store window and into her back.

The SEPTA saga started at 1 a.m., when McLaughlin steered his Route K bus - which runs between East Falls and Arrott Street in Frankford - to the curb to pick up passengers at Front and Champlost, said SEPTA Spokesman Felipe Suarez.

As the bus' doors swung open, several men on the street began shooting at each other. At least 20 rounds were fired, and several struck the bus, Suarez said.

"I stopped because a guy on the street flagged me down," McLaughlin said. "The doors opened and then I heard six to nine shots."

McLaughlin felt a searing, agonizing pain in his lower right side, where a bullet tore through him and then lodged in the bus.

"I reached my hand, looked down and saw that it was pretty bloody," he said.

When McLaughlin looked back to check on his eight passengers, he noticed that blood was splattered all over the floor. He knew he had to find help - and quick.

"I figured that a few people might have been hit, so I guess my adrenaline just took over," he said.

McLaughlin drove five blocks before a police officer who saw the bus' flashing emergency sign hustled over to help, at Fifth and Champlost, Suarez said. The gunmen weren't caught.

Only one of the eight passengers onboard was hurt - Anita Jackson, 36, was treated at Albert Einstein Medical Center for a wound to her left hand and was released.

McLaughlin was lucky: although he was hit in the back, the bullet didn't hit any of his vital organs or break any ribs.

"The news is encouraging; we're just hoping for the best and wishing him a speedy recovery," Suarez said.

Still, when hospital officials called McLaughlin's wife, Lisa, and said only that her husband was in stable condition, her mind raced.

"I thought that he had been jumped or he had a heart attack," said Lisa, 43, who has spent countless nights worrying for her husband's safety during his 14 years at SEPTA.

"When I got to the hospital and they told me he had been shot, it was terrifying."

While SEPTA drivers occasionally are injured on the job, Suarez couldn't remember any instances of drivers getting shot.

"We've had incidents on buses where passengers have gotten into fights and the operator might get hurt [intervening], or where buses have been struck by objects thrown by kids pulling pranks," he said. "But nothing like this."

With more than 200 routes, SEPTA employs about 9,000 people, and most are drivers, he said.

McLaughlin said many of his fellow drivers reached out to him yesterday to wish him well and congratulate him for getting his passengers to safety.

He humbly downplayed the praise, but smiled when his daughters, Emily, 18, and Katie, 14, chimed in.

"He's my dad," Emily said, with a grin. "He's amazing. He's our hero."

In the Grays Ferry shooting, Ingrid Pilarte, 35, was injured when a stray bullet from a gunfight outside the Morris Food Market at 28th and Morris streets slammed into her back.

The shootout erupted about 4:10 p.m. between two older teenage boys, police said. The teens remained on the loose yesterday.

"You never know what can happen in this city," said Frank Perez, Pilarte's husband. "I got great neighbors, but it's not safe anywhere. It's hard to keep my family safe."

Perez, who also works at the grocery, said he had just left to get cigarettes when his 13-year-old son - who was in the market - called his cell phone and shouted that Pilarte had been shot. The couple's 4-year-old son also witnessed the incident, Perez added.

"It's a moment I don't want to see again in my life," Perez said.

Yesterday was Perez's 40th birthday, and he called Pilarte's survival a gift. "God blessed me; he gave me a good present - I got my wife," he said.

Perez said he thought his wife would remain emotionally scarred for a long time by the shooting.

"I don't think she'll come into the business now," said Perez, a native of the Dominican Republic, who has worked in the market for three years. "She's scared now - me, too."

Anyone with information about the SEPTA shooting can call detectives at 215-686-3353. Tipsters on the Morris Street shooting can call detectives at 215-686- 3013. *

Staff writer Damon Williams contributed to this report.