A Virginia mechanic killed while working beneath a tour bus at Wolf Trap is being remembered by friends and colleagues across the country as a beloved husband, father and expert troubleshooter who earned the nickname “The Bus Doctor.”
Andrew Wagner died after a tour bus collapsed while he was working beneath it at Wolf Trap last week.
For the motor coach industry, Wagner was known far and wide as the person mechanics could turn to when they had a bus issue they couldn’t solve.
“We laugh in the industry and we say, ‘If Andrew can’t fix it, it ain’t broke,’” Tracy Salinger, president and CEO of Unique Chauffeured Services in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania told WTOP.
Salinger said she met Wagner more than five years ago, and he quickly became like a brother to her.
“He just had that energy that brightened up a room anytime he came into it,” she said.
When she heard a mobile mechanic had been killed, she said she immediately sent him a text message.
“We, as an industry, saw that there was an incident Thursday night where a mobile mechanic was killed in the line of work. First thing I thought was, ‘OK, I got to check with Andrew,’” she said.
Salinger hoped for a response from Wagner, but it never came.
“And then Friday morning, we all found out that it was him,” she said.
Salinger said Wagner was “a magician at his craft,” who many times helped her team troubleshoot problems and refused payment for that help.
“He’d stop what he was doing and talk with my guys for an hour and walk them through how to fix it, and I never received a bill,” she said.
Salinger said she wasn’t alone in receiving that extra help from Wagner.
“He will do anything he can for anyone, and he’s not in it for the glory,” Salinger said.
On Facebook, the company behind The Bus Doctor shared a statement in which Wagner was remembered as a man with “an extraordinary knowledge of motor coaches,” had an “unmistakable passion” for the industry and a willingness to help anyone who needed it.
“Customers became friends. Colleagues became family,” the post said.
Salinger has since begun a fundraising campaign to support Wagner’s wife and two young daughters.
“We know Andrew. We love Andrew, and because of that, we love you,” she recalled telling Wagner’s wife when asking permission to launch the campaign.
In a Facebook post shared by the company, Emma Wagner thanked people for the outpouring of support.
“Andrew was the most hardworking man, the best husband and partner in life, the most amazing father to our girls, and my best friend in the entire world,” she wrote.
She also thanked the hundreds of people who have shared memories, photos and messages in the days since his death.
“Thank you for seeing him. Thank you for loving him. And thank you for wrapping your arms around my family when you didn’t have to,” she wrote.
Salinger said the loss of Wagner has left the industry devastated.
“We are just, collectively, permanently damaged with his loss. There is such a hole in our world after that loss, and there’s just an incomprehensible pain,” Salinger said, adding that the industry lost not just a professional but also “a friend that was like a brother, the fun guy that would just brighten your day.”
Salinger said Wagner’s legacy may be found in how people treat one another moving forward.
“I think it’s bringing our industry a little tighter, a little closer, to love a little more, to be a little kinder, to be a little more like Andrew,” she said.
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