Pair Honored for Act of Heroism : Rescue: Benito Medrano and Nelson Ruano pulled a man from a burning van moments before it exploded.

Benito Medrano was a bit baffled by all the fuss.

The police were giving him a commendation. Councilwoman Laura Chick was planning a City Hall ceremony in his honor.

All because he and a friend pulled a stranger from a burning van moments before it exploded, something they considered perfectly normal, but which admiring veteran police officers say was anything but.

“We had to do it,” Medrano said Thursday about the rescue. “It’s a reaction most people would have, I guess.”

Not everyone. “I don’t know if I’d have done what they did,” said Los Angeles Police Lt. Tony Alba.

“They ran right into harm’s way and anything or everything could have happened to them. Had they not done that, this guy would have been our 23rd (traffic) fatality this year in the West Valley,” Alba said.

Medrano, 35, and a friend, Nelson Ruano, 24, were waiting in a truck at a traffic light Wednesday morning at Wilbur Avenue and Sherman Way when a pickup ran the light and smashed into a plumbing van heading north on Wilbur, police said.

The van, driven by Herman Lee, 44, rolled over three times and came to rest on its left side. The van burst into fire and flames crept up the side, where Lee was trapped and struggling.

“Everybody was just standing there and doing nothing,” Ruano said. “I can’t believe that. I knew I had to do something.”

Leaving their truck, Ruano dashed to a pay phone to call 911 while Medrano climbed up the side of the van. Ruano then joined him and helped pull Lee through the passenger window as the flames moved toward them.

Moments later, the van, which Medrano said contained gas canisters, was rocked by a series of explosions.

Lee suffered only minor injuries, as did Marco Hanson, 45, the driver of the pickup that hit Lee’s van, said Los Angeles Police Officer Dwight Gillette. The accident was under investigation.

It was pure luck that Medrano and Ruano were at the intersection at the right time.

Medrano, who manages the Canoga Park apartment complex where Ruano lives, spotted his tenant waiting for a bus early Wednesday morning.

Medrano stopped and offered Ruano a ride to a repair shop to pick up his car, which took them past the intersection where the accident occurred.

After their heroics, the two men accepted only a few handshakes before rushing off to pick up Ruano’s car.

Medrano said there was no question that if he was ever again in a similar situation he’d do the same thing.

“Yeah, wouldn’t you?” he said. “If you were in a position to help a guy out of a jam like he was in, wouldn’t you?”