SHERMAN OAKS : Fire Victim Offers Thanks to Burn Center

When they arrived at the hospital, Ron Mass’ sisters were at first unsure that the charred man was their brother--until they looked toward the end of the gurney.

“We saw his feet and knew it was him,” said his sister Marlena Hernandez. “He has pretty feet.”

On Thursday, one year and one day after Mass escaped the Topanga Canyon fires by running through a corridor of flame, his feet were visible, and arguably still pretty, through a pair of Birkenstock sandals. But they were no longer the only way of recognizing the 41-year-old.

Most of his hair was back. So was his smile. And Mass was walking as he made his own rounds at the Sherman Oaks Hospital Burn Center, thanking those who made the turnaround possible.

“When I walked in the door, it was like I came home,” he said. “I can’t thank them enough.”

Nurses and doctors and other patients gathered to celebrate Mass’ survival, as much as anything, and the willpower of a historic patient. He spent more time in the burn unit than anyone else in its 25-year history: five months, 12 days.

But the reunion was obviously painful for Mass, both emotionally and physically. Not only was this the place he suffered pain “you can’t even imagine” in the whirlpools used to loosen burned skin, but even greeting people Thursday was a task for him.

His fingers burned and twisted to half their normal length and melted together in places, Mass greeted well-wishers by gingerly shaking hands or gently hugging them.

And when one would say, “You look great!” as nearly everyone did, he would allow himself a soft, bittersweet chuckle.

Before the fire subsided, Mass’ story had become one of the most poignant and tragic of the devastating blaze that killed three people, one of them his friend.

A carpenter, Mass had returned to his guest house on Deer Creek Ranch the morning of Nov. 2, 1993 to retrieve a forgotten saw. He smelled smoke. Alerting screenwriter Duncan Gibbons, who also lived on the property, the two grabbed garden hoses and began watering down the ranch.

With the fire still roiling on the far side of Old Topanga Road, the two decided to make sure their pets were safe. In a matter of minutes, they were surrounded by flames.

Mass climbed in his Jeep, Gibbons in his Miata, and the two headed down the drive and into the blaze. Passing through the first wall of fire, Mass said, he spied Gibbons in his rearview mirror. After the second wall, Gibbons was gone--later to be found near death in the ranch swimming pool. When Mass drove into the third wall of flame, he heard his Jeep’s tires explode. Then the engine died. He got out and ran, his skin burning as he went.

After 33 skin-graft operations leaving arms that “look like patchwork,” Mass took a break this spring, and it is now time to resume the painful reconstruction.

“I have a little fear” of more surgeries, he said, the pain on a good day being almost as much as he can bear.

But he would like to look in a mirror again and not flinch. And he wants the doctors and nurses at the Sherman Oaks center to do the work.

While most of Mass’ more than $1.5 million in medical bills have been covered by an insurance policy, prescriptions are not covered, and he spends as much as $1,000 a month for medications. Donations to help offset his expenses can be mailed to the Ron Mass Emergency Fund, General Delivery, Topanga, CA 90290.