Fire Dept. Has No Doubt That Men Who Rescued Family of 4 Are Heroes

Michael Cannon admits that when he kicked in the front door of the bungalow-style home on South Woodlawn Avenue and dived into a wall of flames and thick, black smoke two months ago, he just wasn’t thinking too rationally.

“They say there’s a fine line between hero and fool,” said Cannon, 34, half-jokingly as he recounted the June 16 blaze that gutted the light-blue wood-frame home near the garment factory where he works in South-Central Los Angeles.

‘Civilian Heroes’

On Saturday, officials of the Los Angeles Fire Department drew the line, labeling Cannon of Los Angeles and eight others as “civilian heroes” for their part in rescuing three small children and their great-grandfather in the noontime fire.

“It’s not too often that we in the Fire Department can thank civilians,” said Battalion Chief Russell B. Weck, as he handed out the department’s highest civilian award to the nine men.

“These people jumped in and took action . . . when all too often people stand by,” Weck told the group of about 40 people who gathered Saturday afternoon at Fire Station 14 in South-Central Los Angeles.

Joining Cannon at the ceremony to collect their awards were Steven Bermejo, 25; Antonio Pineda, 41; Kenneth Cline, 49; Kenneth Ornburn, 28, and Steven Moiseoff, 23. Not present but also honored were Shay Staples, 22; Arthur Huffman, 28, and Ali Daniels, 26.

The men are credited with saving the lives of John Harris, 67, and his great-grandchildren Ken Gammage, 6; Shamico Gammage, 3, and Brandon Gammage, 18 months. The family was on hand to applaud their rescuers Saturday.

All Four Hospitalized

All four family members were hospitalized for smoke inhalation and second- and third-degree burns. They were released a week later.

“They are all alive today because of the fast action of these civilian heroes,” said Weck, who joined other high-ranking fire officials in offering the group their thanks.

Harris, who lived in the single-story home with his granddaughter, Pamela Gammage, 25, was baby-sitting the children when the fire broke out in the front bedroom, apparently as a result of a faulty electrical system, Weck said. Pamela Gammage, a receptionist, was working.

The fire quickly spread, filling the house with a blinding, black smoke, Weck said. “They became disoriented,” he said, adding that their escape was hampered because all the windows in the house were protected by iron bars and the back door was boarded up with plywood.

Before firefighters arrived at the fire, Cannon and several others leaving the garment factory on a lunch break noticed smoke pouring from the house’s side windows.

Cannon sprinted to the house, kicked in the front door, and began a frantic search for people. “I wasn’t sure anyone was in there,” said Cannon before the ceremony. “But I just had this feeling.”

Seconds after he broke open the locked front door, Shamico sprang out of the thick smoke and ran screaming to the street, which was already filling up with curious onlookers and panicked neighbors.

‘It Was Eerie’

Cannon said he could then hear the muffled cries of a child. “It was eerie, man,” he said.

Meanwhile, Moiseoff and several of the others began pulling at the iron bars, managing to bend one wrought-iron grate backward “out of sheer adrenalin,” Weck said. Harris passed the baby out the window, then collapsed from the suffocating smoke that filled the rear bedroom.

Ornburn said he followed Cannon through the front door, but the pair were finally driven back by the smoke and intense heat.

When firefighters arrived, some of the men had already started spraying the house with garden hoses while others had begun a bucket brigade, Weck said. Harris and Ken Gammage were rescued a short time later by firefighters, who at the direction of the civilians, found the two in the rear bedroom.

“There’s no way I can really thank you,” said a tearful Pamela Gammage during the ceremony. “But thank you all.”