Firefighters rely on ax, luck to rescue Woods
ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, CALIF. — With short, sure strokes of a flathead ax, firefighter Cole Gomoll methodically chopped along the edge of the SUV’s broken windshield as golf icon Tiger Woods tangled up in his — seatbelt and covered in a sheet to avoid shards of glass
waited in shock inside the — mangled wreck.
When Gomoll had cut a long, continuous line to the end of the glass, he and another Los Angeles County firefighter peeled back the windshield. The 6-lb, 36-inch-long ax went down, and the backboard was swapped in.
Within minutes, the ambulance had raced away, bound for the trauma center with its famous patient in the back.
It would be hours before the news broke around the world but for Gomoll and the other nine members of Fire Station 106 in Rolling Hills Estates, California, Tuesday’s call — initially reported as a traffic collision with a person trapped — lasted just 12 minutes.
“He’s just another patient,“Gomoll told The Associated Press on Friday at Fire Station 106.
The 106’s firefighters, from Gomoll up to Battalion Chief Dean Douty, stressed that anyone in Woods’ dire situation would have received the same care from them.
“I didn’t know who was inside the car,” Capt. Joe Pena said, until a sheriff ’s deputy told him.
And anyone else would get the same privacy, too — the firefighters declined to recount the athlete’s conversations and condition at the scene to preserve patient confidentiality.
“His identity really didn’t matter in what we do,” Capt. Jeane Barrett said.
Woods was transferred from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on Thursday to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for “continuing orthopedic care and recovery,” hospital officials said. A Friday night post on Woods’ Twitter account said he “received follow-up procedures on his injuries this morning. The procedures were successful, and he is now recovering and in good spirits.”
Woods had shattered the tibia and fibula bones of his lower right leg in multiple locations. Those injuries were stabilized with a rod in the tibia during a long surgery. Additional injuries to the bones in the foot and ankle required screws and pins.
Everyone says Woods is lucky to be alive — and “if nothing else, it’s a good PSA for wearing a seatbelt,” Barrett added.
The first responders did, however, correct previous reports that said they’d used the Jaws of Life and a pry bar called a halligan tool to free the celebrity.
Barrett, a 25-year fire service veteran, and her fellow firefighters know the dangers of the eponymous rolling hills in the area and have cut many drivers out of their twisted cars.
They initially had three plans for Woods’ SUV: First, try the ax on the windshield. If that didn’t work, see if going through the sunroof was a possibility. A third option would be to cut the entire roof off.
The firefighters and paramedics spoke to Woods — who introduced himself as “Tiger“— throughout, reassuring him through a hole in the windshield that he’d soon be free.
“You can tell he was in pain,” firefighter Sally Ortega said, but he was still responding to their questions and clearly anxious to get out.
“Luckily, our first plan was the one that worked,” Barrett said.