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Norm Washburn: A Genuine American Hero

By William S. Bailey

The poet, Paul Zweig, described a hero as “An example of right behavior; the sort of man who risks his life to protect a society's values, sacrificing his personal needs for those of the community.” However, in his 1976 book Heroes , Joe McGinniss came to the conclusion that human beings today are “myth-less, hero-less, forced beyond the limits of illusion . . . as an infinitesimal and appallingly fragile part of a universe . . .”

A gentle, soft-spoken farmer's son from Post, Texas proved to me that McGinniss is dead wrong, heroes are still alive and well in America . Norm Washburn risked his life to save others when a standby propane heating system blew up, turning an industrial office park into an inferno. Norm suffered third degree burns over 70 percent of his body that day. I represented him later against the companies whose negligence put Norm and hundreds of his co-workers at the Boeing Company in harm's way.

When Norm went to work on October 15, 1986 , a characteristic Pacific Northwest morning fog had descended over the area, with ice crystals in the air. It seemed like a typical day in his life as an electrician at Boeing's Kent , Washington industrial compound. Always eager to lend a hand, Norm was showing co-worker Scottie Holmes how to test the standby propane fuel system. Suddenly, without warning, the area exploded into a giant wall of flame. It was so intense, cars in the nearby parking area exploded spontaneously in a chain reaction of secondary blasts.

It was in the fire of this living hell that Norm Washburn, ordinary man, was transformed into a hero. Norm and Scottie were surrounded by flames, in the center of the fireball. Norm's Navy training of years ago served him well. From this, he knew instinctively to roll on the ground and put out the flames that had by then consumed most of his clothing and several layers of his skin. But Scottie was running around in circles, completely aflame, screaming, gripped by panic. Co-workers assembled on the perimeter of the fire area, paralyzed, watching in mute horror. With no thought for himself, Norm ran to Scottie, tackled him with a bear hug, smothering most of the flames, even though this was certain to cause great additional injury to himself. Then he forced Holmes to the ground, rolling him around to extinguish what was still burning.

With Holmes stabilized for the moment, Norm immediately called out to nearby forklift driver, Constantino Hardy, “Hardy, turn off the propane pump on the tank NOW or this whole place will blow!” It is a miracle that with all the panic, fear and confusion in this scene, Norm remembered that the main valve to the huge propane tank was still open, continuing to fuel the fireball. With the same principle as a fuse going to a dynamite keg in an old silent movie, this whole area, full of hundreds of Boeing workers, was seconds away from an explosion of unimaginable proportions. Constantino scrambled to the shut off valve as instructed by Norm and was able to narrowly avert this disaster. Once the valve was closed, the fire subsided.