Haunting Memories of Quake

The tremor along the Newport-Inglewood fault early this month was barely a ripple in the consciousness of most Southern Californians--but it was enough to shake Ulises Pena out of slumber and bury him in fear. He lay there limp with dread, waiting for the earth to swallow him whole and the heavens to rain concrete.

Three years after his legs were crushed under 20 tons of concrete, leaving him trapped in such agony that he tried to strangle himself to end it, Pena is still in constant pain.

Six operations and years of physical therapy have enabled him to bend his knees and to shuffle about his South-Central apartment on a crutch. His ruined legs, supported by steel braces, barely hold him.

And after years of counseling for post-tramatic stress, claustrophobia still plagues his sleep.

“In my dreams, things are always falling on top of me,” he said in a recent interview. “The first thing I try to do is sit up, but I can’t move--I just shake and wait for the worst to come.”

Pena, 46, a Salvadoran immigrant, was operating a power sweeper in a three-story parking garage at the Northridge Fashion Mall when a magnitude 6.7 earthquake toppled the structure in January 1994, pinning him under the rubble for more than seven hours before he was freed and flown by helicopter to the UCLA Medical Center.

Pena filed a $12-million lawsuit against the owners, managers and designers of the Northridge mall two years ago, alleging that the parking garage was unsafe. “This parking structure was not designed according to the requirements of local building codes,” said Pena’s attorney, Jeffrey Knoll. “Our position is that the design allowed for too much movement during the quake.”

But Bob Young, an attorney for Robert Englekirk, the structural engineer who approved the building, said the garage collapsed because the quake was unusually powerful.

“The building codes didn’t anticipate the lateral force of the quake, which exceeded code expectations by five times,” he said.

Chan Chandler, a spokeswoman for MEPC American Holdings, the Dallas company that owns the mall, said the corporation’s executives were very sorry about Pena’s injuries. But MEPC acquired the property only two months before the earthquake, she said.

“It was an act of God,” she said.

The parties are presently in mediation, hoping to avoid a trial scheduled to begin Sept. 22.

“I actually tried to take my life away,” said Pena, recalling the day of the earthquake. “But I only had one hand--the other was pinned.”

At first the pain was so bad he thought he would die. Then he wished he would die. Then he tried to make himself die. Agony drove Pena to attempt to strangle himself with his free hand.

Sometime during those pain-drenched hours, Pena’s legs began to fade. “I felt them weakening--they were tingling,” he said.

When he was finally rescued by firefighters and airlifted to the UCLA Medical Center helicopter pad, he was barely conscious. The last thing Pena did before sinking into a three-day sleep was authorize surgery. Strapped to a stretcher, windblown by helicopter blades, Pena signed a release authorizing doctors to amputate if necessary.

“I didn’t care,” he said. “I wanted them to do whatever they had to do to get rid of the pain.”

Fortunately, amputation was not necessary. Pena praised the surgeons who repaired the muscle and bone that were compressed under tons of rubble. His medical bills have been covered by workers’ compensation.

Pena said he has gained strength in his lower body, but his progress has plateaued in recent months. He can move only with great difficulty and he rarely leaves that modest apartment that he shares with his girlfriend. For fear of making Pena addicted, his doctor stopped prescribing painkillers.

Winter is the cruelest season, when rain and cold conspire to torture his bones. But his physical pain pales in comparison to his constant fear and melancholy.

“I actually will be able to recover more from my physical injuries than my mental,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like these are not my legs.”