Rescue workers recall chaotic aftermath of hotel massacre

By DAVID PEDREIRA

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 9, 2000

TAMPA -- Paramedics from Rescue 14 were on a routine medical call when the radio crackled: shooting at the Radisson Bay Harbor Hotel . . . SWAT team and rescue personnel needed.

A few minutes later, Lt. Troy Basham knelt over a gunshot victim in the hotel lobby. Others who had been shot lay nearby. Basham loosened his bulletproof vest and settled in for six hours of work.

Those hours remain with him.

"There are certain looks you get from people who are dying that you don't forget," Basham said. "I don't think anyone came out of that place unscathed."

Saturday, nine days after Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva was accused of killing five people and wounding three others, paramedics and firefighters who worked on the wounded talked to reporters about the chaos.

Tampa Fire Rescue arranged the interviews at Fire Station 8, which responded first to the shootings.

Capt. Jose Bibiloni said Engine 8's six-man crew pulled into the Radisson's parking lot within a few minutes of the shooting.

A frantic hotel worker ran up to them, begging for help for the wounded.

Without knowing whether the gunman was still around, Bibiloni ordered his crew to get to work. "We had people shot everywhere," Bibiloni said. "We took a quick consensus and decided we had to go in."

The gunman had driven several miles away before killing his last victim and being captured by police.

At the hotel, about 16 people from Tampa Fire Rescue fanned out, looking for victims. Three gunshot victims survived. But four others at the hotel died, including one whom Basham worked frantically to save.

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