Trapped Toddler Rescued by Campus Transportation and Parking Staff

Ioana Patringenaru | September 22, 2008

Yaro Trujillo poses with her daughter, Aurora, who was rescued from a locked car in the Birch Aquarium parking lot.

On a sunny morning, Yaro Trujillo faced a mother’s worst nightmare in the Birch Aquarium parking lot. She was locked out of her car, her 15-month-old daughter, Aurora, was inside — and so were the car keys. Trujillo had no way to get the toddler out.

“It was horrible,” she recalled.

Aurora was trapped in the car for about 10 minutes. To Trujillo, it felt like hours. Relief came quickly though, when two employees from UC San Diego’s Transportation and Parking Services showed up and opened the car’s door in less than a minute.

“It was just utter relief,” Trujillo said. “I was so grateful.”

Eliud Escobedo, the field operations lead in Transportation and Parking, and Darin Imlay, a senior clerk in the department, said getting Aurora out was just part of their job. Over the past six months, TPS employees have been called to open cars with babies locked inside about a half a dozen times, Escobedo said. He was in on three of these rescues. During one incident, staff members freed two babies at the same time.

Escobedo also said he pushed to get new equipment that allows employees to open power locks. He practiced to make sure he knew how to use it and use it fast. When he and Imlay got to the aquarium that day, they went right to work.

“The only thing in my mind was to get her out,” Escobedo said.

“We were thinking about the time,” Imlay recalled. “You've only got so much and then you have to break the window.”

The two opened the door of Trujillo’s silver Ford Escape Hybrid in less than a minute. “They just ran straight to the window and put in all their tools and it was opened in 20 seconds,” Trujillo recalls. Aurora, who had been crying, reached out for her mom. Trujillo took her in her arms and to a shaded spot, where she gave the toddler water. Escobedo talked to Trujillo briefly, telling her he was glad to have helped.

From left: Imlay, Trujillo, baby Aurora and Escobedo pose at the Birch Aquarium.

Trujillo was at the Birch Aquarium with fellow moms from a sign-language class for babies. At the end of the session, she put Aurora in her car seat and closed the car door. Then she realized that she had left her car keys inside her hybrid SUV. Now all the doors were locked.

She ran to a friend, who called AAA. The friend also found an aquarium employee, who called the UCSD Police Department. A police officer showed up first, but he only had tools that would break the car’s windows. That could harm Aurora, the officer explained. Trujillo and fellow moms did their best to entertain the toddler until more help arrived. But at some point, the little girl started crying and sweating. “I started freaking out,” Trujillo recalls.

That’s when Escobedo and Imlay arrived. They take turns serving in the Motorist Assistance Program for Transportation and Parking, which provides battery jumps, gas and other services for stranded drivers. The program’s dispatcher received a call from the police department and alerted the two employees. That day, Escobedo was the expert, Imlay recalled. “He was the main man, I was the assistant,” the senior clerk said. “He knew what he was doing.”

Trujillo and Becky Mortier, the instructor of the sign-language class, were so impressed with the two staff members that they sent e-mails to Transportation and Parking, thanking them for a job so well done.

“I’m just so glad my baby is okay,” Trujillo said. “I don’t know what would have happened without them.”

From left: Eliud Escobedo, the field operations lead in Transportation and Parking, Yaro Trujillo, baby Aurora, and Darin Imlay, a senior clerk. Imlay and Escobedo rescued Aurora.