COEUR d’ALENE — David Bardin is the kind of guy who stops if he sees someone in trouble — even when he’s on speaker phone with The Press as he’s driving Monday afternoon.
“Wait a minute,” Bardin says.
Seconds later, Bardin can be heard asking, “You need help pulling that out?”
A vehicle with a trailer had slid off of Cougar Gulch Road in snowy conditions and was stuck.
A man answers: “I’ll probably need help getting it out of that ditch.”
Bardin turns his attention back to The Press. “I’ll have to call you back.”
About 10 minutes later, he does.
Bardin used his Ford one-ton pickup and a tow strap to free the rig — just a few hundred yards from a weekend accident which has earned Bardin accolades as a saint, guardian angel and a superhero.
While he appreciates such praise, it makes him uneasy.
“I’m not trying to make it out to where I’m some local hero,” he says.
But others are.
Count among them Ashlee Schilling of Coeur d’Alene. She was the recipient of his assistance when her vehicle went off Cougar Gulch Road Saturday afternoon.
As she was stuck after crashing down a hillside, narrowly missing large trees and rocks, Bardin suddenly appeared, like Superman. He was just there.
“It could have been bad. Just the fact he was there was such an eye-opener for me,” she said in a phone interview with The Press.
She was sore, but OK on Monday.
“It’s nice to know good people are still out there these days helping each other,” she said.
Schilling had come off Stack Road in her 2010 Mazda CX-7 about 1:15 p.m. and it had started raining, so the road was slick.
Still, born and raised here, she wasn’t overly concerned.
“I must have driven that road a million times,” she said.
But the SUV began to slide and Schilling lost control as the wheels hit the gravel and pine needles on the shoulder and pulled her off the road.
“There was no turning back from that,” she said.
It traveled an estimated 80 feet in about 10 seconds, striking rocks and trees before coming to a stop at an angle. The nose was at the base of a tree, the right rear fender resting on a boulder. The driver side door was several feet above the ground.
Schilling, shaken, couldn’t get the door open. She called her mom.
“I’m panicking in my car,” she said.
Then, she heard a voice.
“I’m here to help.”
Bardin was returning to his Cougar Gulch home when he saw the white SUV begin to slide and go off the road about 50 yards in front of him.
He pulled over, grabbed his phone and gloves and sprinted to the scene. He said he literally “hurdled down that hill,” bumping into trees as he went.
It was “eerily quiet” as he approached the vehicle. He mentally prepared himself for what he might find and feared the worst.
The silence was shattered by screaming. He reached up and ripped open the driver’s door.
Schilling’s head emerged. She was pale.
“Are you OK? Bardin asked.
He urged her to relax, stretched out his arms, and Schilling jumped toward him. He caught her and held her up as they returned to the road, then sat her down.
“I ran her up the hill away from the car and examined her. Not a scratch,” he said.
Schilling began asking about her dog, so Bardin ran back and pulled himself up into the Mazda.
The silver lab was in the front passenger seat, a little blood on her lip. Barden retrieved Aree and reunited her with Schilling.
Bardin called 911. The fire department arrived, as did an ambulance. Schilling said she was OK and declined a trip to the hospital, so the first responders left.
Bardin stayed.
“I didn’t want to leave her there alone,” he said.
He waited until sheriff’s deputies arrived, gave them his witness report, and left after giving Schilling a hug and wishing her well.
He believed the seat belt prevented her from going through the windshield and saved her life.
“It looked horrible,” he said.
Schilling was grateful to the man whose name she didn’t catch.
“He stayed with me the whole time,” she said.
Bardin’s actions — running to the scene, getting her from the car, helping her up the hill and staying until help arrived “made a tremendous difference,” Schilling said.
He was a steady, calming influence.
“I don’t know what I would have done if he wasn’t there,” she said.
She was still very thankful on Monday.
“It was a miracle I am just sore and bruised,” she said.
Bardin, branch manager at Premier Mortgage Resources in Coeur d’Alene, said Cougar Gulch Road is windy, with many twists and turns. He was glad he was there at the right time.
He said he stops and checks on others if he thinks they need help. In January, he pulled a delivery truck from a ditch.
“It doesn’t take much time,” he said.
After the accident on Saturday, many tried to track him down. For a time, he was the mysterious hero who swooped in to save the damsel in distress.
His identify was eventually revealed.
Jessica Ponce, Ashlee’s mom, took to social media to find him and posted the story. Within minutes, with hundreds of likes and comments, he was identified, she wrote.
“You’re amazing” and “Phenomenal Guy” were among the social media comments.
Bardin laughs at comparisons to superheroes.
“I don’t feel like I was Superman at all,” he said. “I’m no Batman or anything.”
He displayed a sense of humor about it all.
“I do mortgages. It can be exciting stuff and make my heart race but not getting the adrenaline rush like today when I sprung into action! Oh it’s good to know I have super human strength in these situations,” he posted with a laughing emoji.
He might not be a superhero, but he sure did save the day.
