By Brian Shane

Staff Writer

From a short distance in the dark of night, the fire on the highway appears only as a bright, flickering glow on the grainy police bodycam footage.

Only as the sheriff’s deputy hustles closer does the video become clear: stopped in the road, there’s a car on fire – and it’s right next to a tanker truck.

“There’s people trapped in the vehicle! Vehicle’s on fire!” Worcester County Sheriff’s Deputy First Class Mark Shayne can be heard telling a state trooper, who hands him a fire extinguisher over a guardrail. “We need help up here!”

Shayne runs toward the blaze, pulls the extinguisher pin, and sprays the firefighting foam over the engulfed sedan. “All right, we’re coming!” he calls to the driver. “Get’ em out, get ‘em out!”

He was joined by Deputy Earl Buffa, who freed the driver from her seatbelt and can be seen on camera, hands under her arms, dragging her away to a safe distance.

For their actions in saving the life of the driver, Gov. Wes Moore last week presented Shayne and Buffa with commendations for valor. They accepted their awards Sept. 8 in Ocean City during an annual conference of Maryland sheriffs and police chiefs at the Ashore hotel.

“Today’s honorees are the best of our state, the ones who run toward danger when others run from it,” Moore said in a statement.

The governor also honored two deputies from Howard County who saved a mother and child from an armed assailant, as well as Maryland Transportation Authority Police officers who saved lives when Baltimore’s Key Bridge collapsed in March 2024.

In a video released by the sheriff’s office that included the bodycam footage from the night of Aug. 24, 2024, Shayne says he and Buffa were dispatched for the report of a vehicle versus tanker truck collision on eastbound Route 50 between Racetrack Road and Seahawk Road.

“Honestly, there was so much fire, I didn’t think there was anybody alive in that car,” he said. “Then, my [shift] partner, he went up to the car and actually said there was somebody alive inside.”

Buffa said his first thought was how to get the woman out of the car while avoiding getting burned himself by the flames. “At that point,” he said, “It all went blank and I just put her life ahead of ours.”

The sheriff’s office says both deputies sustained and were treated for severe burns, with Shayne suffering burns to his head and Buffa on his arms.

“It was definitely an eye-opening experience and it kind of shows, like, in the moment, you put somebody’s else’s life above yours and it kind of makes you happy in the end,” Buffa added.