Paramedic Fights Emotions to Save Daughter Pinned by Garage Door

In 20 years as a firefighter and paramedic, Tom Rollo has learned to remain cool under pressure, to face tragedy with poise and professionalism.

But Rollo said he fought to control his emotions to make his latest rescue. The victim was his daughter.

“There were two of me there,” Rollo said, recalling the moment. “The father who was saying ‘Please don’t let my daughter die’ and the paramedic who was saying “Shut up . . . and get to work!”

Rollo’s 5-year-old daughter, Brooke, had become pinned underneath a garage door at their house in Tarzana. When Rollo discovered the trapped girl, she was motionless and already turning a sickly shade of blue.

“She had no pulse, was not breathing and was in full arrest,” Rollo said Sunday.

The near-tragic accident occurred Friday afternoon as Brooke was in the garage of the Rollo residence in the 5900 block of Julian Lane, preparing to take her younger sister Megan, 3, out for a walk.

After sending Megan outside the garage to wait for her, Brooke pushed the button to close the electronically controlled garage door, then tried to run out before the door shut, Rollo said.

“She didn’t make it,” he said.

The garage door, which had no automatic reverse mechanism for emergencies, came down on her back and forced her to the ground, “squeezing the breath out of her,” Rollo said.

A realtor who had been visiting the family spotted the girl as she was leaving the Rollo home. Her scream alerted the parents.

Seeing what had happened, Brooke’s mother, Tina Rollo, rushed back into the house to activate the garage door switch. Tom Rollo ran to his daughter and tried to lift the garage door. Once she was free, Rollo quickly applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but she did not respond immediately.

After several attempts, the child finally began to show signs of life. It was a moment Rollo will never forget.

“Her eyes flickered open,” he said. “She looked over and saw her mommy and started to cry.”

Paramedics from the Los Angeles City Fire Department rushed Brooke by helicopter to Childrens Hospital. She was released in good condition Saturday. She suffered no known injuries in the incident.

Brooke made drawings of the helicopter and her rescuers and presented her artwork to the firefighters and paramedics as thank-you gifts.

Rollo, a paramedic with the Los Angeles County Fire Department whose specialty is helicopter rescues, said the experience has made him more aware of the precautions parents need to take to make a home safe for children. Some garage doors, he said, will automatically go into reverse if they strike an object. But Rollo did not realize that when he surveyed his home to make it “child safe.”

He has already remedied that.

“On the way home from the hospital we stopped and bought a new garage door opener.”

Among the features, he said, is an automatic reverse.