Tornado damage can’t stop father from finding daughter’s favorite doll

HARRISON TWP. — An EF-4 tornado shifted a house off its foundation, but that wasn’t going to stop one man from going back inside to get his young daughter’s beloved doll.

“My daughter, she’s a fan of two things: TY Beanie Babies and her American Girl doll, and we were able to get the beanie babies out, like the first day, but she so wanted her American Girl doll,” Timothy Walker said.

A picture shows Walker triumphant, standing on the roof of his damaged Harrison Twp. home, doll in hand.

>> Miami Valley Tornadoes: What you need to know today

As homeowners work to clean up their homes, many turned to rubble by Memorial Day tornadoes, many children are without their favorite toys. But Walker was going to do his best to make that not the case for his 7-year-old daughter.

To get to that moment, Walker had to go in through the house, up the stairs, find his way through plaster where the roof had fallen in. He eventually found the doll in his daughter’s room.

“She was very, very happy,” Walker told News Center 7’s Molly Koweek. “She grabbed it and hugged it, and you know ‘thank you so much, daddy’ and she was really happy.”

Koweek spoke to Walker and his daughter today.

She was there when this devoted dad went back for the doll’s crib. Koweek will have that part of the story coming up at 11 p.m. on WHIO Channel 7.

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