Owner Partially Paralyzed When Carjacker Crashes Pickup : Robbery: Victim apparently jumped into back of truck after it was taken by gunman. It is unclear whether injuries are permanent, hospital officials say.

A Long Beach resident who apparently tried to stay with his pickup truck after an armed carjacker drove it away was partially paralyzed early Tuesday when the gunman crashed the truck.

Todd Rich, 26, went on a late-night run to a neighborhood convenience store and stopped at his mother’s house in the Belmont Heights area. A gunman approached him and demanded his 3-year-old Toyota pickup, according to police and one of the victim’s friends.

Rich, a resident of the affluent Belmont Heights neighborhood, remembers jumping into the back of the truck as the carjacker drove off.

“He said he didn’t even think about it,” said Diane Casey, a friend and co-worker who talked to Rich at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Tuesday. “The next thing he knows, he’s in the back of the truck. He doesn’t remember a whole lot.”

Rich, a termite inspector for a Signal Hill company, may have become angry that the gunman was taking the truck he needs to perform his job, Casey said.

“He’s not a violent person. He’s a nice, fun-loving person. He’s sweet. He’s kind. He works hard. And that’s his truck. That’s his livelihood,” she said.

Rich told police the carjacker drove erratically before crashing into a parked car in the 1900 block of Olive Avenue, Detective Jim Olds said. Police found Rich in the truck but the carjacker got away. Authorities had no suspects as of Tuesday evening.

There have been 46 carjackings in Long Beach this year through March, according to Cmdr. Stephen Bonswor, who heads the Detective Division. “Not only are their numbers increasing, but the degree of violence is also,” he said.

Rich was listed in serious condition after undergoing surgery to remove his spleen, according to hospital spokesman Ron Yukelson.

He was partially paralyzed below the waist “but it’s too early to tell the degree or permanency,” Yukelson said. Further surgery may be needed in the next week to stabilize Rich’s spinal cord, Yukelson said.

The Long Beach resident is the latest carjacking victim in the Los Angeles area.

On Monday, a Monterey Park woman, Kathy May Lee, was shot to death in front of her mother during an apparent carjacking attempt outside an Alhambra fabric store. Last week, Sherri Foreman died of stab wounds a day after she was attacked near an automated teller machine in Sherman Oaks.

Sheriff’s investigators still do not have a suspect in Lee’s killing. Authorities describe the gunman as a 5-foot-7, slender Asian, 17 to 19 years old, who was wearing dark clothing.

The shooting occurred about 2 p.m. Monday as Lee drove into the parking lot in the 1600 block of West Valley Boulevard. The gunman shot Lee in the upper chest, but left her mother unharmed in the passenger seat. Lee died an hour later at County USC-Medical Center.

Because no other motive has been found, sheriff’s investigators on Tuesday were still calling the killing a possible carjacking.

But Sheriff Sherman Block said the killing may have arisen out of a personal relationship between the gunman and the victim. He speculated “that there was something between the two.” Lee’s co-workers and friends disagreed, saying the amiable, personable realty agent had no enemies.

“She was too giving, too caring, too much involved with everyone else’s well-being (to have enemies),” said Miguel Garcia, a co-owner of Dynamic Brokers in Montebello, where Lee worked.

A UCLA business graduate, Lee joined the company in December after buying a Monterey Park house listed by the agency. She was the only Chinese-American in the mostly Latino, 75-agent office, but she fit in with the family atmosphere and was learning Spanish, Garcia said .

The office was closed for business most of Tuesday as the agents wept and exchanged remembrances of Lee.

Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors added $5,000 Tuesday to a reward fund for information leading to the arrest of the gunman who killed Foreman. The reward totals $35,000.

Foreman was 13 weeks pregnant with the child of her boyfriend, a drummer for the rock group Nelson. Her fetus died shortly after the stabbing.