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‘Hometown
Hero’ Receives Key to The City
Kenneth ‘Leo’ Wyatt
honored for heroic efforts during Sunny Cove plane crash
By
Allison Jean Eaton
Bulletin Staff Writer
COMPTON – The
city’s “hometown hero,” who earlier this month rescued
three victims involved in a small plane crash just east of the airport,
was presented with a key to the city last week, the first granted under
the current administration.
Kenneth “Leo” Wyatt of Compton’s Sunny Cove neighborhood
Saturday, April 12 risked his life to save a neighbor and the pilot
and passenger of a Cessna 310 that crashed into Wyatt’s neighbor’s
home just after 4 p.m. that afternoon in the 500 block of West Cypress
Street.
Last week, Wyatt was honored by both the city and the county of Los
Angeles for his heroic efforts.
“What you did by risking your life… goes beyond measure.
You are truly heaven sent,” said Mayor Eric J. Perrodin during
last week’s
city council meeting.
“You know, we always hear all the negatives that go on in Compton,
but today, we celebrate a man who sacrificed himself in spite of all
obstacles,” said
Sandra Lightner, president of the Sunny Cove Block Club.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for a friend,” she continued, quoting the Bible.
The club presented Wyatt with a check for $500 for his efforts that
day.
Following the meeting, the city hosted a reception in the lobby of
City Hall in honor of Wyatt and the first responders who assisted at
the crash site.
The agencies involved include the Compton, Downey and Vernon fire departments,
the Sheriff’s Department, the L.A. County Police Department and
the Compton School Police.
Wyatt, a baker, first moved to Watts in 1966. He’s lived in the
area ever since, and has lived in Sunny Cove for just over 13 years.
The neighborhood is situated just east of the Compton Woodley Airport,
where planes and helicopters flying low overhead is commonplace.
“I’ve learned to live with it, you know what I mean?” he
says of the planes constantly flying overhead. “When you hear
an engine cut off, you know to run out your house,” he told The
Bulletin.
This most recent crash is one of three he’s experienced since
he’s lived in the Hub City.
Ironically, the plane that crashed was en route to an airport in Hawthorne.
And because the plane crashed because it had lost power, there was
no engine to hear cut out on April 12.
The Compton High alumnus was watching television with his wife, Helen,
in his den when they both heard a big crash.
When Wyatt looked outside one of his upstairs windows, he saw a plane
sticking up out of his neighbor’s home.
“When I came outside, the neighbor, the daughter, she came out
the window and yelled, ‘Uncle Leo, Uncle Leo, my mom is inside,’” he
said.
As he attempted to enter the home and search for the mother, Regina
Hosley, he caught eyes with the pilot.
“We made eye contact. Therefore, I couldn’t just leave
the man like that.”
After rescuing the pilot and the passenger, he eventually found Hosley’s
boyfriend, Daryl Irvin, and pulled him out. Rescue workers eventually
saved Hosley, as well.
Since the crash, Wyatt has been thrust into the limelight.
The day of the crash, he was interviewed by countless local news organizations.
That Monday, he did a live feed to New York for the Today show. The
following day, he was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which aired
Thursday, April 17.
Regardless, he does not feel like a “hero,” and insists
that what he did was nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done – and
that he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“It was an adrenaline rush – a no-nonsense move,” he
said. “I
don’t feel any different. I’ll deal with the hoopla, but
I don’t like the word ‘hero’,” he said. “I’m
just blessed that everyone’s OK. I just did what any natural
person should have done.”
Since the crash, Wyatt’s wife, Helen, has had trouble sleeping.
The two, he said, had recently contemplated moving.
“I was thinking about movin’, but not no more,” Wyatt
said after receiving the key to the city. “I’m not going
anywhere. I love the city of Compton.”
“My wife wanted to move because she’s a little shell-shocked
now,” Wyatt
told The Bulletin later. “Sometimes at night, she don’t
want to stay at home ever since the crash.”
But the Wyatt’s aren’t going anywhere, now.
Wyatt has even been offered to head his street’s phase of the
Sunny Cove Block Club.
Is he going to do it?
“We’ll see,” he said.
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