In October 2001, frazzled county Coroner Wallace Miller sat in a makeshift courthouse office, wondering whether life would ever return to normal.

Last week, he sat in a comfortable front room of his Somerset funeral home, contemplating finally reaching that point as he prepares to release custody of the Flight 93 crash site. For a man who has stood in an international spotlight answering questions ranging from what to do with terrorists’ remains to how to deal with charred trees on sacred ground, Miller has retained his characteristic modesty.

And he still seems surprised at receiving ovations from colleagues and Flight 93 families.

“I never did anything with the idea of being ground-breaking or history-making,” the 46-year-old, second-generation coroner said. “Things happened, and I did the best I could.”

In fact, it’s something of a relief for Miller to be getting on with things, though he said he’ll always be available for those families that he guided through the searing pain of Sept. 11, 2001.

Awards and speaking engagements continue to arrive but that now can take a back seat to running a small-town funeral home and answering coroner’s calls, both from the same office. “I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m not appreciative – I am,” Miller said of the praise he’s received. “But at some point, you’ve got to live your life.”

That life of a businessman, husband, father and basketball coach was changed forever nearly two years ago.

Considering what would happen in the coming weeks, Miller received word about a commercial airliner crash near Shanksville in an unspectacular way – a phone call from a neighboring county coroner’s office.

It was a day when one shock led to another. No one, not even a coroner who had seen his share of violent death, could have predicted the crash scene’s devastation: A smoking pit, tiny bits of debris and the shatteringly obvious conclusion, no survivors.

“You would see pieces of metal shot into a tree like they were shot from a crossbow,” Miller recalled, noting that the Boeing 757 slammed into the ground at an estimated 550 to 575 mph.

But even from the first minutes after the crash, Miller was not alone. Local assistance came in droves, and a plethora of experts called to offer their services.

The coroner won’t talk about those first chaotic days – and the months afterward – without thanking a long list of people from local, state and federal jurisdictions.

“We actually really did turn people away,” Miller said.

But from all accounts, he handled the pressure – including a crushing media presence – quickly and ably. And when grieving, shocked family members began arriving just days after the crash, Miller took a leading role by meeting with them personally. “I run the coroner’s office through the eyes of a funeral director,” Miller said. “When I go to a scene, I automatically focus on the family members.”

In the coming months, Miller would carefully explain his work to those who lost loved ones on the plane while keeping gory details out of the public eye.

He used a personal touch, forming lasting friendships while also handling such technicalities as getting court permission to issue death certificates for those whose remains had not been recovered.

And long after federal agents left the scene, Miller kept strict vigil over the site, coordinating sweeps for remains and debris and enforcing tight limits on those who could enter what’s now considered a cemetery.

He agreed to spread dirt and plant grass there, trying to restore the site to its original, peaceful state. And when charred trees that surely contained human remains had to be taken down, Miller had them chipped so they would not leave the site.

On many days last summer, Miller walked with families as they made their first foray into the jetliner’s impact zone.

“He was a lifesaver for the families,” said Carole O’Hare of Danville, Calif., whose mother, Hilda Marcin, died on Flight 93.

“We were, in my opinion, extremely fortunate to have such a compassionate person as Wally,” O’Hare said in a telephone interview. “He treated our families as if they were his family.”

Miller receives similar accolades from colleagues. Cambria County Coroner Dennis Kwiatkowski assisted with Flight 93 operations and has been friends for years with Miller and his father, Wilbur, also a longtime Somerset County coroner who retired in 1997.

“They’re just a great bunch of folks,” Kwiatkowski said in a telephone interview.

“His dealings with the families were outstanding because of that fact,” Kwiatkowski said. “He’s been brought up with it all his life.”

Flight 93 in some ways has continued to dominate Miller’s life, although things have slowed considerably. A final sweep of the crash site last month yielded only a few handfuls of small plane debris, and that helped Miller decide to finally release custody of the scene.

Through a complex set of plans set forth by county commissioners, the immediate crash area will remain under Miller’s control until they can complete purchases of the land, possibly within weeks.

And Miller will remain involved with Flight 93 to some extent. Of the remains recovered at the crash site, only 40 percent could be identified. That leaves 60 percent of all remains still in Miller’s custody until he receives further instructions, likely from Flight 93 families.

But he has rejected calls to play a role in planning a permanent memorial for the hijacked jet. There’s been a lot of talk about all “stakeholders” having a say in the process, but the coroner insists he’s not one of them.

Miller said the incident has made him a better coroner by increasing his contact with experts. But there will be no book or national lecture tour, no life in the public eye – just a chance to run his business and office the only way he knows how. It’s the same philosophy Miller espoused back in October 2001, even as the world was just beginning to focus on this rural county and its quiet coroner.

“It’s just a way of life,” he said of his job at the time. “It’s what you do.”

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