Sarah Jo Stott made her first visit home Thursday since losing her legs and most of her fingers after being hit by a freight train in Montreal in December.
Sarah and her mother, Shelley Stott, drove to Shelley’s house in Limoges for an overnight stay. The pair are to return Friday morning to Montreal, where Sarah will enter a rehabilitation centre.
First up? Playing with her dog, Sheeba, visiting with friends who’d gathered at the house and an in-home appointment with Shelley’s hairdresser.
But Sarah is still waiting to be transferred to The Ottawa Hospital. Sarah moved to Montreal to work about a year ago, but when she wanted to be transferred home to Ottawa for rehab she ran afoul of Ontario’s mandatory three-month waiting period for OHIP eligibility.
“OHIP is giving us a hard time,” Shelley said. “She has an OHIP number now and The Ottawa Hospital keeps calling and asking when she’s is going to come, but OHIP won’t tell us.”
“Sarah is so sad. She’s been crying over this. She’s miserable. She just wants to come back to Ottawa.”
Sarah, 22, was injured around 3 a.m. on Dec. 8 when she took a popular, but illegal, shortcut across a CN rail line in the Montreal borough of Verdun. She passed a parked train, but didn’t see an approaching freight train on the next track.
The impact knocked her into a ditch where she lay for about three hours before she was found. Doctors amputated one leg above the hip and the other below the knee. Frostbite claimed all but the thumb and index finger of each hand.
An online campaign (www.gofundme/sarahjo) has raised more than $70,000 for her rehabilitation costs and the bar where she worked, the Irish Embassy Pub in Montreal, is holding a fundraising party in her honour on Feb. 11.
She continues to receive a stream of visitors in her hospital room, including one from the eight firefighters who were first on the scene.
“That was extremely emotional because they’re the ones who saved her life,” Shelley said. “I was crying. She was crying.”
Sarah Stott received a visit this week from the Montreal firefighters who were first responders the night she was struck by a train.
But the visits and media interviews have been exhausting, she acknowledged.
“When she does these interviews it takes a lot out of her. She puts up a brave front, but she’s exhausted afterwards.”
Sarah revealed some of her pain in an interview this week with the Montreal Gazette.
“Everyone tells me I’m very strong, but I’m not strong, because I spend most of my time crying and hating my life,” she said. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t also lose my hands.
“I’m looking forward to the future, and looking forward to a happy life, but right now, it’s not happy at all. It’s hell. Once I’m able to walk again and have hands, the future will be brighter, and I won’t be such a baby all the time.”
