Neighbor rescues all but one in fire

Even though Jackie Schwendeman helped six people escape a burning house in South Park on Monday night, she grieved the life she couldn't save.

The 17-year-old boy who lived across the street was the same age as her daughter, after all.

Although he has not been officially identified by the King County Medical Examiner's office, KING-TV said the family identified the boy as Prackserth "Patrick" Soeun.

"I was able to get everybody out but one," Schwendeman said Tuesday afternoon, tears sliding down her face as she peered out her window at the charred wreckage of her neighbors' garage in the 8800 block of Fifth Avenue South.

She moved outside and watched from her front porch as the boy's parents, accompanied by a monk in orange robes and a Seattle Fire Department chaplain, prayed beside a gurney holding the teen's remains before it was loaded into a van.

Schwendeman offered up her own prayer, her eyes squeezed shut and her palms pressed together: "Just wrap your arms around them. Bring them some comfort and peace, I beg you."

It was Schwendeman, 48, who saw smoke billowing from her neighbors' garage Monday night when she took her puppy out for a walk. She ran back into her house, yelled for her daughter to call 911, and sprinted across the street.

By then, "it was really smokey," and flames were starting to climb up the side of the house, she said.

Schwendeman banged on the door but didn't wait for an answer before barging in, yelling that the garage was on fire. She picked up an elderly man — she said he was the teenager's 88-year-old grandfather — and carried him to a car outside.

"I went back in, and by this time the windows were busting out," Schwendeman said.

"Then there were three explosions from the garage. The fire was like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "It was that fast."

Six family members escaped safely. When the family couldn't find the 17-year-old, "we told the Fire Department someone was in the house. But they couldn't find anybody," she said.

Schwendeman and other neighbors, thinking the teen had escaped, spent frantic minutes searching nearby streets, calling his name. Family members later gathered in Schwendeman's home, where Fire Department officials told them the teen's remains were found after firefighters had knocked down the flames.

"They were all crying. They called me a hero, and I'm not. I could've got him out if I'd have known," said Schwendeman, who was overcome with grief and guilt. "They lost their son, they lost everything. I want to help them and I don't know how."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the cause of the fire was "undetermined pending autopsy results," said Dana Vander Houwen, a spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department.

The family was too grief-stricken to speak to reporters. But another neighbor, Chho Collins, said the family, originally from Cambodia, moved into the two-story house about 16 years ago.

"They're a happy family," Collins said. "They play music together, always laughing and joking."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654

Information in this article, originally published Feb. 2, 2010, was corrected Dec. 4, 2010. A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Prackserth Soeun. It has been corrected.