California Teen Credited With Saving Cousins, Woman

By the time Theresa Kundert got word that she, her family and a neighbor had been burned out of their homes Monday night, there was nothing to do but cry.

But on Tuesday evening, Kundert, 55, sat in her room at the EconoLodge in Yuba City, and reviewed the situation.

"You don't get it," she recalls telling her niece, Jill Ayala, 14, earlier in the day. "Everybody could have died in that fire, honey. You saved that older lady and her dog, and all these kids.

"She don't take credit for what she done," Kundert said of her niece.

According to neighbors, by the time firefighters arrived Monday night at the scene on Church Street, the duplex that had been home to Ann Bennett, 83, on one side and Kundert, her daughter, Michelle Kundert, and five grandchildren on the other, was engulfed in flames.

But thanks to the quick actions of Ayala, a Linda resident who had been babysitting cousins Romeo, 8, Angela, 6, Kimora, 4, Junior, 2, and Michael, 2 months, both units were evacuated and no one was injured in the 8 p.m. fire.

Her aunt Michelle had just an hour or so of errands to run, and had left 15 minutes earlier, Ayala said, when she heard her neighbor pounding on the door to a shared laundry room.

"I'd just changed his diaper," said the Yuba Gardens eighth-grader of her youngest charge. "That's all he had on."

Ayala opened the door to find a panicked elderly neighbor. Behind her, flames and smoke were visible.

"I ran to the front door with the kids, but the door wouldn't open," she said. "I had to stop and think."

What seemed like an eternity probably was just a few seconds. She managed to get the door unstuck and exit to the far end of the yard with the children, and Bennett's dog, Mandy.

When she realized that Bennett hadn't followed her out, she charged back in.

"Her room was already in flames and the fire was traveling," Ayala said. "Smoke was everywhere."

She covered her nose and mouth with the top of her T-shirt and grabbed a hold of her neighbor's arm.

"She thought her dog was still inside," Ayala said. "She didn't want to leave."

With no place to go, Bennett eventually wound up at Rideout Memorial Hospital on Monday night, according to Kundert. Her dog was being looked after by a part-time caretaker.

Ayala and the children had no shoes or coats on when they evacuated the house. Neighbors saw to it they got blankets and a place indoors to wait for family members.

Eventually, Ayala went by ambulance to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.

The shy, fresh-faced teenager -- "Baby Jill" -- as she is known by family members, lives in Linda with three siblings.

By the time Ayala got home, her emotions had caught up to her. She spent the night with her parents in their bed. It was the only place she felt safe.

Kundert, who had been working her regular cashier's shift at Walmart in Linda when she received the emergency call about the fire, said her grandchildren were visibly upset by the events.

On Tuesday night, her granddaughter, Angela, was nearby, finally sleeping soundly.

The 6-year-old had been distraught by the loss of Kundert's burned Walmart uniforms and name tags. She believed her grandmother would lose her job because of it, Kundert explained.

She was also worried about Bennett and her dog.

"Nana, what's going to happen to Ann and her dog?" she asked her grandmother repeatedly.

"She laid up crying all night," Kundert said. "It's too much for these kids."

She looked around her hotel room, and focused on at a neat stack of new children's clothing and a new stroller.

Red Cross volunteers brought them, along with food and toys after helping settle the family into their temporary lodging -- paid for, courtesy also of the Red Cross.

"My family can't even help me, but here are these people I don't even know reaching out to help me," she said, tearfully.

"I'm embarrassed to take things. I have a job," she said. "But what do you do when you really need it?"

McClatchy-Tribune News Service