ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. – With short, sure strokes of a flat ax, firefighter Cole Gomoll was suddenly cut down on the edge of the SUV’s broken windshield like a Tiger Woods golf statue – tied up in his seat belt and covered in sheet to avoid shards of glass – waiting in panic 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 pulled back the windshield. The 6-lb (2.7-kilogram), 36-inch (91-centimeter-long) ax went down, and the backboard was turned inside out.
Within minutes, the ambulance had run away, stranded for the trauma center with its famous patient in the back.
It would have been hours before the news broke around the world but for Gomoll and the other nine members of 106 Fire Station in Rolling Hills Estates, California, a call did not occur Tuesday – originally reported as a human traffic accident locked – just 12 minutes.
“It’s just another patient,” Gomoll told The Associated Press Friday at Fire Station 106.
The 106 firefighters, from Gomoll up to Battalion Chief Dean Douty, confirmed that anyone in Woods hardship would have received the same care from them.
“I didn’t know who was inside the car,” said Captain Joe Peña, until he was told by a deputy sheriff.
And anyone else would get the same privacy as well – the firefighters refused to report the athlete’s conversations and situation at the scene to preserve patient confidentiality.
“His identity did not matter what we do,” said Captain Jeane Barrett.
Nonetheless, these briefs marked a milestone in Gomoll’s career: This was the first time a 23-year-old Marine Corps veteran had made such a foray into the field.
Gomoll entered the fire station, located about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the crash site, in August as a test firefighter. Just three weeks ago, he had used similar gestures by one of his landlords, Barrett.
“We’ve trained for stuff like this,” Gomoll said.
Tiger Harbor-UCLA was expected to leave within a week
Woods was transferred from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Thursday to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for “ongoing orthopedic care and treatment,” hospital officials said. A Friday night post on Woods’ Twitter account said he had received “follow-up procedures on his injuries this morning. The procedures were successful, and he is now recovering and in good spirits. ”
Woods had broken the tibia and fibula bones of his right leg in several places. These injuries were stabilized with a rod in the tibia during prolonged surgery. Additional injuries to the bones in the leg and ankle required scratches and pins.
Woods had been driving a 2021 SUV on a downhill stretch that was notorious for shipwrecks when it hit a centralized center in a Los Angeles suburb, it went into trails that came in and traveled several times.
The crash is the latest addition to Woods, who has won 15 major tournaments and 82 victories on the PGA Tour. He is one of the most recognizable sports figures in the world, and at 45, even with a smaller record from nine previous surgeries, he remains the biggest attraction at golf.
He was in Los Angeles last weekend as a Genesis Invitational contestant at Riviera Country Club. He was set aside Monday and Tuesday to give golf tips to celebrities on GOLFTV, owned by Discovery.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff has called the crash “just an accident” and said drugs and alcohol did not appear to be a factor.
Everyone says Woods is lucky to be alive – and “if nothing else, it’s a good PSA for wearing a seatbelt,” Barrett said.
First responders, however, corrected previous reports that said they had used Jaws of Life and a pry bar called a halligan machine to free the celebrity.
Barrett, a 25-year-old veteran of fire service, and her firefighters are aware of the dangers of unnamed hills in the area and have cut many drivers out of the complex cars. aca.
Initially they had three plans for a Woods’ SUV: First, try the ax on the wind. If that didn’t work, see if it was possible to get through the sun. The third option is to cut off the entire roof.
LASD Deputy: Tiger Woods ‘lucky’ to survive crash
Firefighters and paramedics spoke to Woods – who introduced himself as “Tiger” – throughout, reassuring him through a hole in the wind that he would soon be free.
“You can tell he was in pain,” said firefighter Sally Ortega, but he was still answering their questions and clearly wanted to find out.
“Fortunately, our first plan was the one that worked,” said Barrett.
As the ambulance pulled away, Barrett inspected the SUV to see what lessons her crew could apply to save a future driver.
“A car will never be crushed in the same way,” she said.
The firefighters then gathered around their station’s kitchen table, then ate salads for lunch in a nearby park – getting a taste of the last of the silence while the final news making its way around the world.