By Lou Ponsi
The Orange County Register
DIAMOND BAR, Calif. — Loren Allen can remember riding in the passenger seat of a Nissan Sentra and reading a book about a man who dies in a car crash.
And she can remember her father, Rudy Wallachy, suddenly cursing.
And then, not much.
“I just remember him saying a bad word, and the next thing I know we were spinning,” Allen said.
It was about noon July 10, and father and daughter, ages 81 and 48, were driving east to Phoenix on I-10. They were planning to visit Wayne Wallachy — Wallachy’s son and Allen’s brother — for one of their first get-togethers since the death of Marion Wallachy, the family matriarch, three months earlier.
“I just wanted to be with family,” Allen said.
They never made it to Phoenix.
Rudy Wallachy remembers less than Allen.
He was driving, and then suddenly the car was spinning out. He saw the ground twirl in front of him through a cracked windshield as the car tumbled down an embankment before settling, wheels down, on the desert floor.
Rudy Wallachy can remember a hissing sound that started when the spinning stopped. He looked to his right, but Allen wasn’t next to him anymore, and the passenger door was open.
Flames were shooting up the sides of the car.
“Loren ... Loren,” Wallachy yelled.
“Get me out of this thing!”
And that’s when — and both remember this part — their angels arrived.
Life Celebration
On a recent Saturday, at the Wallachy family’s house in Diamond Bar, Rudy Wallachy and Allen hosted a party. The guests of honor were Dave and Brittney Padore of Brea.
The party came nearly six months after Dave Padore, 38, pulled Wallachy out of the wrecked Sentra and Brittney Padore, 17, gave roadside comfort and aid to Allen.
The two father-daughter couples share a bond as rescuers and rescued. And the party, with about 40 friends and relatives in attendance, was a moment for telling the world about that bond.
“The world needs to know what they’ve done for us,” Allen said.
Allen gave Dave Padore a Superman T-shirt and then told his daughter: “If it wasn’t for your father, I wouldn’t have a father anymore. My siblings wouldn’t have a father. His siblings wouldn’t have a brother.”
Rudy Wallachy thinks his deceased wife sparked the Padores to stop and help that day.
“I can’t help but believe that,” he said.
“I’m just glad I was there,” Dave Padore said. “It was perfect timing.”
Crash
The Padores were driving on I-10 with Lisa Padore — Dave’s wife and Brittney’s mother — a daughter, Andreya, 13, and a friend to a weekend getaway at the Colorado River. About an hour into the trip, they saw a car on the bottom of an embankment, about 100 yards from the freeway.
“I thought it was an old accident from the day before,” Dave Padore said.
Lisa Padore saw what appeared to be legs hanging out the passenger-side door. Her husband, a youth counselor with the California Corrections Department, pulled over. He told his wife to call 911 and the children to stay in the car.
Wearing board shorts and flip-flops, Dave ran down the hill and climbed over a barbed-wire fence to get to the car.
Flames were shooting up from under the hood. Another couple, already on the scene, ran from the car, the woman screaming, “It’s going to blow.”
Dave Padore rushed to the driver’s side, but damage and flames blocked his view of the interior. He moved to the passenger side and found Allen, her face on the ground and legs badly burned.
Padore pulled her a safe distance away and went back to the Sentra. He saw Rudy Wallachy wedged between the steering wheel and center console and managed to yank the large man out. Both men fell backward, Wallachy on top of Padore, just before the car fire expanded.
Brittney Padore, meanwhile, was disobeying her father. While Dave Padore helped Wallachy, the high school senior, who has taken sports medicine classes at Brea Olinda High School, ran to the scene and focused on Allen.
As Allen said, “Don’t let me die, don’t let me die,” Brittney Padore poured water on her and offered comfort.
“I am going to stay here and be with you until somebody comes,” she said.
Paramedics arrived about 40 minutes later.
Lifelong Bond
After Rudy Wallachy and Allen were taken away, the Padores resumed their trip and as planned, spent a weekend partying on the river.
But they wondered about Allen and Wallachy.
Brittney Padore called the California Highway Patrol but got no information. Dave Padore called hospitals in the area and discovered that the two were at the Desert Regional Trauma Center in Palm Springs.
On Monday, as they headed home, the Padores swung by for a visit.
“When I realized who she was, I started crying,” Allen said, recalling seeing Brittney Padore at the hospital.
“She saved me. She comforted me. She was an absolute blessing.”
“She was my angel.”
Wallachy and Allen suffered numerous broken bones. Allen also had a ruptured lung and severe burns. She still has difficulty moving her wrist and doesn’t expect to resume her job as a hairstylist until midyear.
Wallachy, who is retired, is living in an assisted-living facility until he fully recovers. He only recently had the halo brace removed from his head and neck, and he still has trouble moving his arm.
In the months after the accident, Brittney Padore stayed close with Allen, calling, e-mailing and even visiting a few times. They talk about a variety of subjects, not just the accident.
“We have a lot in common,” Allen said. “It’s not just about my bruises.”
Allen is also developing a friendship with Lisa Padore, and Allen’s husband, Jim, is friendly with Dave Padore.
Allen says they’ll remain friends for as long as she’s breathing
“She touched my life,” Allen said of Brittney Padore. “For the rest of my life, she touched it.”
“I love these people,” she added. “I wish there were more people like them in this world.”
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