A Vicious Cycle : Passer-by Rescues Girl, 3, Trapped in Washing Machine at Laundromat

A 3-year-old girl trapped inside a whirling washing machine in a Garden Grove laundromat was rescued by a workman who shattered the glass with a hammer, police said Thursday.

“I could see a little leg going around and a hand pass by,” said Scott S. Norman, who happened on the scene about 8:35 p.m. Wednesday.

The child, identified by paramedics as Tiara Tuisata of Santa Ana, apparently climbed into the coin-operated machine while playing with her 7-year-old sister and an 8-year-old cousin, Police Lt. Larry Hodges said. A customer had put coins into the machine and filled it with soap but had walked away when it didn’t start, police said.

When the girl climbed inside, her sister shut the door, automatically locking the machine--a heavy-duty, front-loading type that remains locked until the end of the cycle.

“The thing was going around rapidly. My first thought was to get water out and get some air in there,” Norman said.

Norman was able to smash the glass, pry the handle open and reach in for the girl.

She was taken first to the Medical Center of Garden Grove and then to St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach, where a spokesman Thursday said she was in the pediatric unit in fair condition with cuts and possible pneumonia. She had gone to the self-service laundry with her aunt, whom police would not identify.

Norman, 35, a self-employed tile-setter from Torrance, was on his way home from a job when he stopped to call his wife from a pay phone near the laundromat at 13686 Euclid Ave. Coincidentally, he was returning from another laundromat, where he had been installing a tile floor.

“As I got out of the truck and started to the telephone, I saw a guy run out of the laundromat and he looked like he had panic written all over him,” Norman said.

“I Thought, ‘Oh, my God”’

The other man ran into a liquor store, screamed for help, came outside and then agitatedly told Norman, “I need to break some glass, I need to break some glass. . . . There’s a little kid trapped in a washing machine.”

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” Norman said.

Norman grabbed a tool box from his truck and ran inside, where about a dozen people were “trying to figure out what to do,” he said.

“And sure enough, there was a little kid in one of those front-loading machines.”

Norman was familiar with that type of front-loading machine he described as “very powerful”; his mother-in-law owns a self-service laundry.

“Once the machines close, they’re locked,” he said. “I’m surprised the poor girl didn’t end up with a broken neck. Just by the grace of God, she’s OK.”

When Norman first broke the circular glass on the machine with his hammer, “her little leg came out.” The broken glass was cutting her leg and his arm and hand. Norman pushed her leg back inside with one hand and tried to hold onto her; one of his hands was going around and around with the machine while his other hand hammered away at the handle. Norman managed to pry open the handle and open the door, but the machine kept running.

“Then I reached inside and with both arms grabbed whatever I felt and tried to squeeze her into a ball to get her out because, like I said, the machine was still going.” By forcing her into a snug shape, Norman hoped the fins inside the machine would not cut her.

The child came out “screaming bloody murder,” he said. “I saw she was in pretty good shape. And I gave her a big hug and put her down.”

The rescue took less than a minute, but police were not sure how long the child had been inside the machine. Norman said others at the scene told him she may have been trapped as long as 10 minutes.

Norman dismissed the hero label.

“It’s just a blessing. It’s by the grace of God. It’s just the timing,” he said. “I’m just thankful I was there. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else.”

Times staff writer Nancy Wride contributed to this story.