international news _ 17th February, 2006
Wally Lopez- Jesus Saved Me
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Pacha star Wally Lopez chatted to Skrufff this week about how he survived a dramatic car crash car crash last month, and suggested he'd been able to walk away virtually unscathed through divine intervention.
"I really believe in Jesus Christ and I've always thought that someone is watching over me because I've always been a lucky man and that day, though I didn't see anything, I honestly believe that someone was with me," said Wally. "I suffered no pain or even scratches, though I know people who've died in less serious crashes."
The Spanish house star was travelling with a friend to DJ at the Silencio club in Valencia, when his car spun round and skidded some 600 metres on ice before crashing into a mountain at the side of the road.
"I remember thinking about the gig while trying to control the car, which was strange, then thinking about my wife, that she's quite young to loose her husband," he recalled. "Which seems strange but that's what I felt."
"When the car had stopped, I got out and had a look at it, put my hands in my pocket and said 'what a crash'. Then I called the promoter."
The promoter came and brought Wally to the club where he played the best set of his life ('I was thinking ''I'm so lucky to be here') though added that since that night he's continued to be disturbed by vivid dreams.
"In my dreams I'm not frightened because I'm still driving quite slowly but it's true that I've seen myself dying in many dreams over the last month," said Wally.
"I don't know if that's a symptom of trauma or not but I'm certainly seeing my life more positively," he added.
His near death experience struck parallels with Italian house star Vito Lucente (aka Janior Jack aka Room 5) who was seriously injured four years ago in a car smash in France in which his friend died. Chatting to Skrufff last year, Vito recalled how his friend fell asleep at the wheel, driving off the road with fatal consequences.
"He died immediately and I was seriously injured. I had an operation and I was paralysed almost completely; ie both my legs and both my arms and they put my neck in a metal frame. I was paralysed for almost six months," said Vito.
"The crash itself really wasn't a scary experience, for example, it wasn't full of blood," he continued. "My friend who died was just lying there with his eyes closed, I didn't know he'd died at the time, then he ambulance came but they didn't tell me he'd died immediately, they waited until three days later. Though of course, when they told me three days later, I then felt very scared and it was difficult to sleep."
Vito was subsequently paralyzed for six months before undergoing a risky operation, from which he thankfully made a full recovery.
"Before the operation the doctor told me 'Maybe you're going to leave this hospital in a wheel chair, maybe you're never going to walk again' and when I got back in the studio after all that, I felt like I was reborn, so I put Junior in front," he added.
"And another thing that has changed is that I'm never going to drive for many hours in one stretch again, now I take the train and plane for long trips. It can happen to anybody, it's a question of seconds," he warned.
Related Article
Wally Lopez Interview with Jonty Skrufff (10/2005)
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