WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) – Amanda Gallagher’s life passion was capturing people at their happiest moments.
Tori Tong took note of this as they became close friends, and eventually partners in the same photography studio.
“She just naturally became my kind of accountability partner,” Tong said. “She got me going to the gym. She was always sending me text messages like, sit up straight and breathe deep. And she was just always looking out for everyone’s wellness. And I think the biggest emphasis on things is that she just simply cared. She just cared.”
Now Tong, and the rest of her friends are grieving, after Gallagher died when she accidentally backed into a running plane propeller at an airfield at a skydiving facility near Rose Hill.
It was there she was doing what she loved most, capturing people at their happiest moments, taking picture of people getting on and off airplanes.
Julius Casura met Gallagher as a fellow live music photographer.
“My wife actually told me, like, mentioned it the night before. She was like, because she’s from Rose Hill, and she was like, hey, somebody passed away at the airstrip out here where they do, you know, parachuting. And I was, I didn’t even connect dots at all, you know, at the time,” Casura said. “And then came to find out I knew who it was, and that that broke my heart is still that, like my stomach, like my heart is still in my stomach.”
Miguel Genochio runs a community organization just next door to the photography studio and got to know Gallagher through their mutual friends over the last few months.
He shared with us a photo of the group of friends, out for Tong’s birthday dinner just a few weeks ago.
“Time flies, right? It felt like we just had dinner, like, less than a month ago, and it’s. like, it’s just wild man, like, the more I think about it… Yeah, man, it sucks,” Genochio said.
A GoFundMe page has been set up by Gallagher’s family.
