Burn Institute to Honor 18 for Valor in Helping Others

Marine Sgt. Richard Hicks was spending his weekend leave with his girlfriend. Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Winter was patrolling Interstate 8. Al Ducheny was attending a meeting of the Harbor View Community Council.

Suddenly and unwittingly, each found himself cast in the role of hero, trying to save people trapped by fire. And for his response in an emergency, each will receive the San Diego Burn Institute’s Spirit of Courage award.

At its 12th annual awards banquet Thursday, the institute will recognize 18 people for acts of courage performed in San Diego County during the last year. Although the number of recipients has increased over the past few years, the self-effacing manner with which most people accept the awards remains constant.

“Most of them don’t feel that they were heroes at all,” said Elizabeth San Vincente of the Burn Institute. “They just feel that they were in a certain place in a certain time and did what they had to do.”

In most of the cases, “doing what they had to do” meant entering a burning structure or vehicle to remove someone trapped inside. The recipients were nominated by local fire departments and were notified by mail that they had been designated as “heroes.”

“I was kind of surprised,” Winter said, expressing a reaction typical of recipients. “I don’t really feel it was justified. I’m not ungrateful, I just didn’t think what I did was that heroic.”

In June, Winter, a deputy at the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s Lemon Grove substation, was driving east on Interstate 8 when he heard a California Highway Patrol call about a stalled van on the freeway.

“The van just stopped,” he recalled. “This young sailor was coming up on a motorcycle and rear-ended the van. The bike just literally exploded. I was about a quarter-mile behind when I saw this huge fireball.”

When he arrived, the van, the motorcycle and its rider were engulfed in flames. Winter pulled the man from under the van and extinguished the flames with his coat and his hands. The motorcyclist died five days later.

Although he has also been awarded the Sheriff’s Department medal of valor and a medal of courage from the American Legion, Winter dismissed the “hero” label.

“It’s really nice to be recognized after doing it, but I really didn’t think about it at the time,” he said. “All I knew was that this poor kid was on fire from head to foot and I had to do something about it.”

Hicks, 23, on weekend furlough from his Marine Corps assignment at Twentynine Palms, was visiting his girlfriend in Escondido one Sunday in October when he saw smoke coming from the house next door.

He was met in the front yard of the house by a woman who said her 2-year-old son was inside the burning house. Hicks found the child badly burned and not breathing and took him outside, where he revived him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The boy, Noah Jennings, survived his injuries and will be present at the awards banquet, San Vincente said.

Like the other recipients, Hicks said he did not consider his actions heroic.

“I didn’t really consider it at the time,” he said. “Something just had to be done, and what happened happened. It all happened too quick to think about me.”

At his moment of heroism last August, Ducheny, 42, was serving as chairman of the Harbor View Community Council, a group that he says encourages Logan Heights residents to become more involved in the problems and concerns of their neighbors.

Through the window of the meeting room, Ducheny saw flames coming from the roof of an apartment building across the street. He ran into the building, pounding on doors and shouting fuego (fire) to alert the residents, all of whom escaped uninjured.

Ducheny said his actions were not bravery, simply community involvement.

“I’m very involved in this community, so when I see something like this, it’s like something has to be done,” he said. “I saw a great danger to them and I didn’t see very much danger to myself, so I got the people out.”

Although appreciative of the award, Ducheny questioned whether such awards are more gratifying to the giver or the receiver.

“Awards are given by people who benefit by giving them,” he said. “But I think that’s a good thing if the awards encourage people to get involved with other people.”

San Vincente said she believes the awards perform an important service.

“I think it at least lets them know that there are people in the community who appreciate them and recognize them and the contribution they’ve made.”