EARTHQUAKE / THE LONG ROAD BACK : A Trial by Fire : Escaping From Truck Engulfed by Gas Blast, Burned Man Finishes Journey

Jimmy Menzi’s pickup truck stalled at Balboa Boulevard and Rinaldi Street in Granada Hills Monday morning, shortly after the earthquake struck.

Menzi did what anyone would do--he turned the ignition key. He did not know that under the street a gas line had ruptured.

The now infamous intersection exploded into a fireball, engulfing the truck and starting fires that burned several nearby residences to the ground.

Miraculously, Menzi not only escaped the truck, he managed to walk for miles before receiving medical help.

Suffering from second-degree burns over much of his body and speaking from his hospital bed, Menzi, 30, recounted a tale that is extraordinary even by the standards of earthquake country.

It began with Menzi loading his dogs, Shep and Bimbo, into his truck at his Simi Valley home, just after the earthquake struck. He wanted to check on his mother, who lives in Santa Clarita.

“I took my dogs because they were scared,” he said, lying in his hospital bed with burn cream covering much of his face and bandages on his chest. Hospital officials asked that the interview be no more than 10 minutes because his doctor had ordered him to rest.

Menzi drove east on the Simi Valley Freeway, exiting at Balboa in hopes of reaching the Golden State Freeway. Chaos reigned on the street, with several cars stalled by the water that was spouting up from two broken water mains and rushing down Balboa.

Directly behind Menzi, also in a pickup truck, was Ryan Paskwietz of Northridge was trying to get to his mother’s house in Tujunga. Paskwietz, who witnessed the fireball, said that just north of Rinaldi, Menzi’s truck was making its way around the second water spout when it stalled.

“He started it,” Paskwietz said in a telephone interview, “and it made the kind of grind you get when you start a car that already started. I guess that sparked the flame.”

Paskwietz said that Menzi’s truck immediately turned orange as it was bathed in flames. Menzi remembers little of it.

“Then there was a big explosion,” Menzi said. “The windshield was engulfed in flames.”

Menzi’s flannel shirt caught fire and he bolted out the door. He ran to the water spout, dousing the flames.

“If there hadn’t been water in the street,” Menzi said, “I don’t know what I would have done.”

Paskwietz said he put his head down on the passenger seat and blindly drove in reverse to get away. Later he saw that his windshield wipers, plastic grill, turn signals and other parts on his truck had melted.

By the time he looked up, Menzi was gone.

Menzi said the fire was too hot for him to go back to his truck and he figured his dogs were dead. He remembers thinking that he still had to complete his original plan: He had to get to his mother in Santa Clarita.

He walked up Balboa and turned onto San Fernando Road. A man who saw him from a house gave him a new shirt to wear. Menzi tried to pay him for it.

“He wouldn’t take any money,” Menzi said.

Starting back toward Santa Clarita, Menzi headed onto Sierra Highway. A police officer stopped him, asking him if he needed an ambulance. “I said I didn’t think I needed one,” Menzi said.

He started hitchhiking, and a man in a van agreed to take him to his mother’s. Menzi figures he had walked about 10 miles.

When they reached the intersection of San Fernando Road and Lyons Avenue, Menzi spotted his mother, Mary Menzi, driving a car and hailed her. She said she was shocked by her son’s appearance.

“He was beet red,” said Mary Menzi during a visit to the hospital to see her son. “It looked like he had to fight to get through.”

His mother and sister persuaded Menzi to get examined by paramedics at a nearby fire station, who sent him to a hospital.

Burns covered at least 25% of his body, doctors told Menzi, and they placed him in intensive care. On Thursday, his condition was listed as serious.

His sister, Cheryl Menzi, said her brother has been dealt a severe blow by the loss of his truck and all his tools. She said a fund for him has been created at Valencia National Bank in Canyon Country.

Menzi did get a bit of good news on Thursday. Passersby had found Bimbo, and the dog was being treated in a pet hospital.

Veterinarians at the Blue Cross Pet Hospital in North Hollywood contacted Menzi by calling the beeper number printed on a tag on the dog’s collar. They told him Bimbo had suffered serious burns on her muzzle but will probably survive.