Boy, 13, Breaks Leg Saving Mother

A doctor had just declared 13-year-old Steven Hernandez fit to play after-school football when the Arleta boy got a real-life chance to prove his quick reflexes.

Hernandez, risking his own life, pushed his mother out of the path of a fast-moving mini-van that was careening out of control toward the street corner where the two were standing on their way home from the hospital appointment Wednesday.

The van missed Carol Hernandez, 34, by only a few inches. But it struck her son, breaking his leg and inflicting other injuries that sent him back to the hospital he had left minutes earlier, said David Monette, a Los Angeles City Fire Department paramedic.

There were no other reported injuries in the 12:55 p.m. accident at Roscoe Boulevard and Woodman Avenue in Panorama City, authorities said.

The boy’s mother said the van struck her son after apparently colliding with a pickup truck that was making a left turn.

“We stopped at the corner, and he grabbed my arm and threw me out of the way,” Carol Hernandez said Wednesday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center.

“The next thing I knew, he was under the car that hit him. He saw me and started to scream and yanked himself out, and he yelled, ‘Mommy, I’m OK.’ ”

Monette said the boy’s quick action saved his mother from serious injury and maybe from being killed.

“Us older people don’t do as well as kids,” Monette said. “It’s a good possibility she would have had some critical injuries. There could have been some bad damage.”

“I just can’t believe it,” the mother said. “My insides are jumping. If he had not moved me, the van would have crushed me.”

Steven, who will be in the seventh grade at Pacoima Junior High School in September, was released from the hospital Wednesday evening. He suffered a broken lower left leg, a deep cut on his left knee and scrapes and bruises on his right knee and leg, said Sam Faruzzi, Fire Department engineer.

“I’ll never forget this day,” Steven said. “I’m glad she’s alive and I’m alive too and that I saved her life.”

How does it feel to be a hero?

“Not very good. I’m in pain.”

Her son won’t be able to play football this year because of his injuries, but the grateful mother said she plans to take him out for a big dinner as soon as he can walk.

And he may be in line for a bigger allowance, she said.