O.C. Couple Badly Burned in Suicide Try

Distraught over her declining health, a woman doused her sleeping husband with boiling water and then set herself on fire early Saturday, authorities said.

Phuc Nguyen, 66, and her 74-year-old husband, To Hoang, both survived, but were in critical condition with severe burns Saturday as their children and neighbors grappled with the bizarre incident. Nguyen left a suicide note, in Vietnamese, that said she was too sick to continue living and wanted to take her husband with her, officials said.

“She just wanted a way out,” said the couple’s daughter, Hoa Hoang, of Long Beach, who was keeping a vigil outside her mother’s hospital room Saturday. “She didn’t feel well. She was complaining about the illness all the time. . . . It’s sad that it’s come to this.”

Nguyen’s children said she was suffering from high blood pressure and had been hospitalized last month. Since her release several weeks ago, she has been weak, depressed and afraid of dying, relatives and neighbors said.

“She told me she was sick and she wanted to kill herself,” said Hue Nguyen, who is not related to the couple, but lives next door to them in a gated community of townhouses in the northeastern part of the city.

“I told her, ‘Don’t do that. Just enjoy life.’ She said she was worried” about dying, Hue Nguyen said. “I told her don’t worry, everybody has to die--even me when I get older. When it’s time, everybody has to go.”

Phuc Nguyen and her husband fled Vietnam in 1975 and moved to Orange County four years later, after living briefly on the East Coast, relatives said. To Hoang, a former state social worker, retired several years ago.

Married for 47 years, the couple has seven children and 11 grandchildren, many of whom visit their Westminster home each weekend.

“She wanted both of them to die together,” said Khoa Le, the couple’s son-in-law. “They stuck together.”

Police and fire investigators believe Phuc Nguyen dumped a pot of boiling water on her husband’s head while he lay in bed. Having previously doused her head and shoulders with rubbing alcohol and lighter fluid, she then struck a match and set herself ablaze, said Westminster Fire Marshal Don Herr.

Awakened by the scalding water, Hoang extinguished the flames on his wife’s body, Herr said. At 3:50 a.m., one of them called 911.

“It’s just strange,” Westminster Lt. Mike Schliskey said.

When police arrived, they discovered the couple--both badly burned--sitting on the couch, talking. Paramedics arrived about 15 minutes later and the two patients were immediately placed on life-support systems and rushed to the burn unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

They remained in critical condition Saturday night, police said. Hospital officials refused to release any information on either victim.

Inside the couple’s home Saturday, bits of tissue were scattered near the couch where they had sat after the incident. An empty pot and pan were in the sink, a teapot was perched on the counter next to the stove and a cluster of medication bottles sat atop the kitchen table.

“The best that we can understand is that she’s despondent and depressed over recent health problems. Why she did it, we don’t know,” Herr said. “There’s a lot of things that aren’t answered as to why she did this. There needs to be a lot more investigated.”

A Vietnamese interpreter has reviewed the suicide note but has not yet provided a complete translation, Herr said. Family members said they had not seen the note.

Herr and Schliskey said Phuc Nguyen could face charges of attempted murder, attempted suicide or arson, but were unsure whether she would even be arrested.

The couple’s children learned of the incident Saturday morning, when the youngest, Henry Hoang, called his father to find a mutual friend’s telephone number and instead spoke to fire investigators in their home.

“We talked to them the day before. Nothing was wrong, everything normal,” said Henry Hoang, who lives in Cypress. “It’s unbelievable. We’re shocked.”

“We were in shock,” repeated his sister, Hoa Hoang. “We didn’t think my mother could do this. . . . My mother was pale, frail and dying. We can hardly believe it.”