Terry Bagley Awarded for Heroic Acts
In November 2022, Terry Bagley, Sr., 70, part of the Environmental Management Service (EMS) at the VA Maryland Health Care System and a Marine Veteran, was walking to the grocery store to pick up pasta for Thanksgiving when a house in his neighborhood exploded, and he heard someone cry for help.
“There were people standing around not doing anything to help. The others held me back and told me not to run into the house, but I yelled ‘Oorah’ and went in,” said Bagley.
His split-second decision—rooted in his Marine Corps training and his South Carolina roots to help others—empowered him to carry two adults—a mother and daughter—to safety. When he rushed into the house a third time to rescue the husband/father of the family, the house collapsed around him, causing serious injuries, including a broken pelvis, femur, and hand. The third person he was attempting to rescue died in the fire. Later at the University of Maryland R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center where paramedics transported Bagley, it wasn’t clear if he’d survive his injuries, and clinicians placed him into a medically induced coma and delayed a surgery until his heartbeat became stronger.
“When I carried out the ladies, they were badly burned, their hands and arms burned down to white. The whole side of the mother’s face was burned,” said Bagley, who wondered if he would have been able to save the man, the third individual trapped in the burning house, had he’d been younger and stronger.
Recently recovered, the unstoppable Bagley has returned to work at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. Leadership—Jonathan R. Eckman, P.E., director of the VA Maryland Health Care System; Lori Rosenzweig, associate director for operations; Timothy Lesane, chief of EMS, and Bagley’s immediate supervisors, Assistant Chiefs Antonio Rowe and Rickey Westmoreland—welcomed him back to work and recognized his heroic actions with an award presentation on Friday, July 7.
“We are proud of you and happy to see you back. There was a time we didn’t think you were coming back,” said Rosenzweig.
Bagley, who survived polio as a child, the toxic water at Camp Lejeune, and who served in Vietnam, said his identical twin brother, Jerry, and his family—his wife and three children—rallied around him during his recovery and took turns sitting with him during the Thanksgiving holiday.
“I don’t regret saving the ladies, but sometimes I do regret running into the burning house because of all the pain I’m in,” said Bagley who now uses a cane.
Still, Bagley wants his coworkers and others to know that “helping others, helping each other,” is the most important value and its own reward.