Teen Honored for Attempt to Rescue Woman

Sometimes good things do happen to good people.

Take 10th-grader Saleem Patterson, who was honored Thursday for coming to the aid of a suicidal woman who had set herself on fire across from Reseda High School.

Although the 47-year-old woman died nearly two weeks after the Feb. 2 incident, police credit Saleem’s quick actions--calling for help and smothering the flames with his athletic jacket--in trying to save the woman’s life.

To show their appreciation, officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Community Police Station presented Saleem with a certificate of appreciation and an athletic jacket to replace the one he used in the rescue attempt.

“I didn’t do a big thing,” Saleem, 15, told a handful of police officers and school officials during a brief ceremony on campus. “I just did what anyone in my position would do.”

But Principal Robert E. Kladifko disagreed.

“Too many people stand around when a crime or incident occurs,” he said. “I’m not sure that a lot of us would have done the same thing.”

Capt. Lee Carter, commanding officer at West Valley, called the teenager’s actions “heroic” and “brave.”

“He put himself in danger [because] he could have been seriously injured,” Carter said. “He took it upon himself to try to save her life. Saleem, you are a very brave man and we appreciate it.”

Officer Suzy Calderon, who along with partner Officer James Hahm were the first officers to arrive at the scene, said Saleem was upset because “he felt that he could have done more.”

The trouble began about noon on Feb. 2 when the woman poured charcoal lighter fluid over her body, sat down on a curb near her house in the 6600 block of Etiwanda Avenue and struck a match, Calderon said.

Saleem was walking with his mother, Rita Campos, along Kittridge Street near Etiwanda when the driver of a car slowed and told them a woman was on fire, Calderon said.

Ironically, Saleem said, he was not in class at the time because he had been suspended for a day for talking back to a teacher. He and his mother were on their way to a parent-teacher conference at the school to resolve the matter.

Saleem ran to the school and yelled to Los Angeles Unified School District Police Officer Greg Berry that a woman was on fire, Calderon said. They ran to the burning woman, who was on her hands and knees.

The teenager took off his jacket and wrapped it around the woman to smother the flames, Calderon said. Berry tried to get the woman to drop and roll, but she wouldn’t cooperate, so he pulled her legs until she was in the prone position.

Berry ran to get a garden hose to put the flames out, Calderon said. Campus aide Jesse Hernandez and cafeteria worker Jenny Magdaleno also rushed to assist the woman, police said. The woman was first taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Calderon said, and later transferred to the burn center at Los Angeles County--USC Hospital, where she died Feb. 13.

Police also awarded certificates of appreciation to Berry, Hernandez and Magdaleno at Thursday’s ceremony.