Christmas comes early
Good Samaritans offer new wheels, new chance for hit-and-run victim
In the next couple of days, sometime before Christmas Eve, Steven Torres hopes to pick up the bike purchased for him by good Samaritans in the Santa Clarita Valley who rallied around him after he was struck by a hitand-run driver and left for dead.
They bought him a bike but he hasn’t had the chance to pick it up.
“I haven’t had a chance to go in and get it,” he told The Signal on Tuesday. “I’m working double shifts, taking extra shifts to buy presents for Christmas.”
Every work day before the crash, Torres, 22, left his home in Palmdale where he lives with his “grandmother and her husband,” then once he arrived in the SCV, pedalled to his job at Staples on The Old Road.
That was the routine until Nov. 9.
“I was getting off work at Staples,” he said. “And I was on The Old Road going from work to the train station. At about 10 o’clock, out of nowhere, I was hit on Lyons, hit from the back.”
One person who saw Torres flying through the air was Amy Noland’s husband, John.
John Noland was so upset he told his wife, Amy, who in turn posted a story of the hit-and-run driver in hopes of locating him. She had information to share: a gold-colored sedan, perhaps a Camry.
And she had a photo of the car parts left in the crash.
Friends and others who read her story were moved, they decided to do something to help the injured young man.
For Torres, there were no major injuries.
“I went, like the next day, to the hospital,” he said. “Then a couple of
I was really shocked because I’ve never had anything like that happen to me”
Steven Torres,
Palmdale resident
days later, I had a pain in my legs and couldn’t stand on my legs.”
Torres returned to the hospital where doctors told him he had torn muscles in his legs. After a few days of healing, it was back to work.
That’s when strangers -- residents of Santa Clarita Valley whom he did not know -- rallied around him, wanting to help in some way. Torres was surprised. “I was really shocked because I’ve never had anything like that happen to me,” Torres said. “I’ve been discriminated against because of the color of my skin.”
Good Samaritans
Cindy Marnoch, manager at the Valencia bike shop Performance Cyclery, was approached, she said, by good Samaritans galvanized into action by the crash that destroyed Steve Torres’ bike.
“These good Samaritans bought a gift card so that he could buy a bike,” she said, noting the money raised went to the purchase of a “specialized” Expedition bicycle.
Inspired by the group’s efforts, Marnock picked out an exceptional bike and applied a discount to its purchase.
Rachel Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness gym, was one of the good Samaritans who contributed to the bike purchase.
And, one of the other good Samaritans, physical therapist Amy Wunsch at Next Level Physical Therapy, offered giving Torres free physical therapy sessions.
Asked if he would take up the offer of physical therapy, Torres said: “Most likely, I’ve been getting numbness in my legs.
“If I’m sleeping, I’ll wake up and my leg is numb,” he said, noting doctors told him to return to them in two weeks if his condition did not improve.
Despite the prospect of having a brand new bike, Steve Torres won’t have pedal to work in Stevenson Ranch, Amy Noland said Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Torres received more good news when he learned from his manager at Staples that store bosses were trying to arrange a transfer that would allow him to work at the Staples in Lancaster.
This works out well for Torres, who transferred from College of the Canyons where he had been studying film and later computer science to Antelope Valley College, he said.
None of the good news would have found its way to Torres, however, had it not been for Amy Noland, who was so moved by her husband’s witness to the hitand-run crash that she had to reach out.
“Back on Nov. 9, my husband witnessed a young man
get hit on his bike on Lyons Avenue. It was about 10 p.m.,” Amy Noland said. “The car didn’t even stop.”.
The search, meanwhile, continues for the car that hit him.
“I posted it on my Facebook page hoping someone would see the car -- because it would have obvious damage and report it to the police.”
She said her husband observed that the car might have had out-of-state license plates.
“He did not get the number and was too concerned about the young man lying the street to chase after the car,” Amy Noland said. “But out of that post on FB came the kindness and generosity of so many people.”