BAY AREA QUAKE : Boy’s Ordeal Moves a World of Strangers to Offer Help

From Brazil to Beverly Hills, the calls poured in: What can we do, worried voices asked repeatedly Thursday, to help young Julio?

In a post-quake world swirling with intolerably tragic stories, Julio Berumen’s stood out. Paramedics, trying to free the 6-year-old boy from a car squashed between the pancaked decks of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, had been forced to saw through his mother’s dead body, which pinned Julio in the wreckage. Then, to free him, they amputated his right leg above the knee.

It was, one rescuer said later, “like a scene from the battlefield. Like war.”

Moved by news of the boy’s ordeal, the public responded mightily Thursday, deluging newspapers, relief agencies and the hospital where Julio is recovering with offers of help.

Does he need toys, callers wanted to know? Money? Maybe new clothes? Would my daughter’s teddy bear be of any comfort?

Several callers, believing incorrectly that both of the Richmond boy’s parents died in the quake, even offered Julio a home.

“We had 100 calls just this morning, from all over the country, even from France,” said Dennis Green, a spokesman for Children’s Hospital in Oakland. “They are offering anything and everything. . . . Julio’s story has captured everyone’s attention and sympathy.”

Brad Glasman of Encino was among those who reached out. Glasman, 31, is a stockbroker in Beverly Hills. When he read of Julio’s plight, his reaction was “total shock.” Then action.

“My wife and I talked about it and we decided to offer Julio a place in our home,” Glasman said Thursday. “I’m a successful businessman, we have a stable home and I figured this kid was going to have one rough life. So we called.”

When he learned that Julio’s father, Pastor Berumen, had not been killed, Glasman left his name and phone number on a list being compiled by the hospital.

“I told them I’d do anything, I’d fly up if I could do any good,” Glasman said. “Who wouldn’t be moved by this? Like I told my wife, if something happened to us, I hope someone would be around for our 2-year-old (son).”

A woman in Cleveland, Ohio, said she and her children were assembling a care package for Julio, full of things “to cheer him up. We just want to help him get through this,” she said.

Other callers offered to care for Julio should his father--whose other child, Julio’s 8-year-old sister, Cathy, was also rescued from the car and suffered head injuries--ever need a break.

On a day of untold bleakness, the outpouring of support provided a bit of a lift: “It’s very heartening to people of the Bay Area, this generosity and heartfelt sympathy,” Green said. By the end of the day, calls to the hospital totaled 250.

Julio, meanwhile, was not yet out of danger. Extensive tissue damage to his left leg may force surgeons to amputate that limb, too.

On Thursday, Julio remained unaware of his situation. Heavily sedated, he was in serious condition but improving, doctors said. Little was said about the boy’s prognosis, but a lengthy hospital stay and intensive physical therapy were certainties.

As for his psychological condition, hospital officials said only time will tell.

“It will be a very, very delicate task,” Green said of the eventual need to explain Julio’s condition to him. “At this point, there is a great deal of comforting going on, but he is not at a point where anyone can interact with him yet.”

Julio’s father continues to keep a vigil at the hospital, shifting his attention between his son and his daughter, who was in stable condition. Green said Berumen’s grief and shock were deep: “He is quite overtaken by it all.”

To aid Julio and his sister, donors may send checks to the Julio and Cathy Berumen Relief Fund, Summit Bank, 2969 Broadway, Oakland CA 94611.