Cambodian-American teen perished in house fire in Seattle

Seattle firefighters battle a South Park neighborhood house fire late Monday. A teenager died, and six people escaped. (Photo: CLIFF DESPEAUX / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

(Photo: MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES)

Neighbor rescues all but one in fire
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter

A 17-year-old boy was killed in a fire that gutted the garage of a South Park home Monday night.

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.

"I was able to get everybody out but one," she 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, moments before it was loaded into a van.

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