Officers’ Heroic Acts Will Be Honored : Police: Ten will receive the LAPD’s most coveted award for bravery, the Medal of Valor.

“The truck was on fire,” recalled Los Angeles Police Officer Derald Wimmer. “There was smoke. Underneath it were two squashed cars. We asked if everybody was all right and that’s when we heard the lady screaming, ‘Somebody help me! Somebody help me!’

“She was stuck inside one of the cars.”

The quick action taken by Wimmer and Officer Bruce DeLong that morning in April, 1988--both of them were off duty and driving the Riverside Freeway through Corona--spanned but 10, maybe 15 seconds.

But their heroism in pulling Dartha Guenther out of the smashed car as her hair burned and her clothing caught fire, as the tires popped and the vehicles exploded, has won them the Police Department’s most coveted award for bravery.

They are among 10 officers to be presented the department’s Medal of Valor at a special ceremony Friday. They were chosen from among almost 100 officers on the 8,400-officer police force who were nominated for commendations for bravery at the scenes of burning buildings, traffic collisions and SWAT operations.

“You couldn’t have had a better cop at these scenes,” said Cmdr. William Booth, the department’s chief spokesman. “They conducted themselves in brave and honorable fashion.”

Those to be awarded the Medal of Valor include Officer John D. Hall, who was ambushed and wounded in the left arm in March, 1989. His police dog, Liberty, was killed when it attacked a suspected car thief. In the darkness of a storage area, Hall fired at the flash of the suspect’s gun muzzle, disabling him, and moments later shot a second suspect as the man reached for a gun.

Another honoree, Officer Daved Leaton, kicked in the nailed-shut door of a 100-year-old Hollenbeck home that became engulfed in flames in August, 1988. He escorted a woman and two children to safety out of a back room. “I had both kids cradled around each arm and I told the woman to hold onto my belt,” he said. “Somehow, we made it outside.”

He also caught another woman and two children who were dropped by a second officer from a second-story window.

“You can have 12 officers at a fire and the building about to tumble down, but only a half-dozen will run inside in search of victims,” said Booth.

Wimmer said that when he and DeLong realized the woman was trapped inside the burning wreckage on the Riverside Freeway, they immediately ran to her aid.

“There was a lot of smoke and she was screaming . . . we opened the door, pried it open and reached in and started to get her from underneath,” he said. “She was under the dashboard and the roof had collapsed her into that little area under the steering wheel.

“The car around her was on fire. She was on fire. I got her head and Bruce got her feet. As we pulled her out, you could smell burned hair. And all this time, the tires were exploding, popping from the fire.

“And then that whole stack of cars exploded and there was this huge fireball.”

Guenther, who lives in Cherry Valley, Calif., thought she was going to die.

“I couldn’t get the car door open,” she said. “I’d lost my shoe, my glasses fell off and melted. The keys were frozen in the ignition, yet the motor was still running. And in the rear-view mirror, all I could see was the truck’s radiator lying on top of my car.

“But I wouldn’t be here today, 65 years of age, working part time, maintaining my own home, if it hadn’t been for them.”

Officer David J. Cervantes said he did not believe his actions were particularly heroic. Cervantes and Officers Ralph E. Morten and Randy D. Walker each will receive an award for their work as part of a SWAT team operation in August, 1988, in Watts.

A man allegedly had beaten his wife and tried to shoot her and police surrounded his apartment, hoping to draw him out peacefully. He responded with gunfire; police fired back with tear gas.

Cervantes, Morten and Walker worked their way to the small front porch, forcing the door open enough to peek inside. More shots were fired, and Walker was hit twice--in the gas mask and the left shoulder. Cervantes emptied his automatic shotgun at the flash point inside, and Morten fired his service revolver to provide cover for Cervantes while he reloaded the shotgun.

The man inside returned fire, but only briefly.

“It was suddenly quiet, like being out in the wilderness,” Cervantes said. “Absolutely quiet.”

The man was found shot to death in the apartment unit, struck in the torso, chest, arm and legs. “We did everything we could to keep from shooting this guy,” Cervantes said.

Also being honored are:

* Recruit Officer Don Tsunawaki, who rushed to the aid of a pinned-down and injured partner during a North Hollywood shoot-out in July, 1989. With only five months in the Police Academy and seven days of field experience, Tsunawaki carried fellow Officer Chate Asvanonda to safety, using his own body to shield him until he could reach a waiting ambulance.

* Sgt. George A. Lamprey, who raced across six lanes of the Golden State Freeway, climbed over the center divider and pulled an unconscious driver from the burning wreckage of a sports car in February, 1989.

* Officer Loran Dale Turner, who last January rescued several people on the San Diego Freeway when a car overturned and burst into flames in heavy traffic. One of the victims he saved was a pregnant woman who had gone into labor.