George Mira Jr. saw his share of violent hits and bloody injuries as a linebacker for the University of Miami and the San Francisco 49ers. But none of those images compared to the scene he walked in on at the Palmetto Bay home of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor early Monday morning.

Taylor had been shot in the groin by an intruder and he was losing a lot of blood. Mira, a Miami-Dade fire battalion chief, was on duty at the Coral Reef Fire Station and had been called to the scene to assist in the rescue. When the call came at 1:46 a.m., and a colleague told him it was the former Hurricane who was shot, Mira didn't believe it.

'I knew the Redskins played Sunday, and I thought, `No way it's Sean Taylor. Must be a mistake.' But then I got to the house, and looked right down at his face, and I was like, 'Oh my God, it's him,' '' Mira said by phone Monday night.

``Me being a Hurricane football player and him being a Hurricane football player, it really hit me hard. We never played together, I'm almost 20 years older than him, but we crossed paths, and we have that UM connection, and I wanted to do everything I could possibly do to save him.''

Mira said it was a bloody scene.

''The femoral artery is a horrible area to be shot,'' he said. ``People watch Westerns, see someone shot in the leg, and it's no big deal, but in real life, if you get shot in that area of your leg, it's like slicing a garden hose. The blood comes out fast.''

Taylor, 24, had lost consciousness and his blood pressure was plummeting. Mira, 42, was responsible for coordinating the units on the scene and dispatching information on the radio.

''As the battalion chief, I was there to coordinate and supervise, so I wasn't involved in the hands-on treatment, but all the paramedics did a super, super fantastic job,'' Mira said. ``I actually wish I was physically involved with his rescue.

'It was so hard to stand back and watch another UM football player in trouble and not be able to do more myself. I was getting antsy, and found myself yelling, `Let's go! Let's go!' to the other guys. We did all we could do for him, and then packed him off to air rescue.''

Mira checked in with the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital through the wee hours of the morning, and called UM coach Randy Shannon, his former teammate, at 8 a.m. to tell him the news.

''I didn't want him to hear it through the grapevine,'' said Mira, who played at UM from 1984 to '87.

By the time Mira got back to his Palmetto Bay home Monday morning, he was physically and emotionally drained. Until that emergency call, he never realized that Taylor lived less than a mile away from him.

''I've passed that house on Old Cutler so many times, and never knew Sean Taylor lived there,'' Mira said. ``Even though I didn't know him that well, I feel like we're UM brothers in a way, and it was a horrible, horrible thing to see. But I feel good knowing that the guys did a great job, all they could possibly do, and hopefully, we saved his life.''

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