Train accident victim ‘spark plug, bright light’
Sarah Jo Stott, who lost her entire right leg and half of her left in a train accident in Montreal in 2014, died this week.
“She was a spark plug and a bright light in my life,” said friend Carol Ann MacDonell, who in April 2015 held a fundraiser that attracted 625 people to Tudor Hall and raised $40,000 to help cover Stott’s rehabilitation costs.
MacDonell, a former business colleague of Stott’s late father, John, said Friday that she had only met Stott three times prior to her 2014 accident, yet the pair grew very close.
“I loved her like my own niece or daughter.”
Stott’s death is not considered suspicious, nor is it being investigated by police.
Stott was taking a popular but illegal shortcut through train yards to her St-Henri home at about 2 a.m. on Dec. 8, 2014, following her shift as a waitress at the Irish Embassy Pub Grill, when she stepped between parked freight cars, and the admittedly clumsy Stott tripped on the track and fell in front of an oncoming train.
Thrown into a ditch between tracks and unable to climb out, Stott endured minus-14C temperature, remaining conscious for almost four hours while futilely calling out to people she could see in the distance.
“They were like ants,” she remembered. “And I was so mad because they couldn’t see me. I felt fear, the most intense that you could ever feel. Like ‘I have to get the f--- out or I’m dead.’ ”
It wasn’t until 6 a.m. that someone finally spotted her and ran over to help.
Over the next few weeks in a Montreal hospital, her right leg was amputated above the hip and her left below the knee. The long exposure to the cold, which helped prevent her from bleeding to death, cost her all of her fingers except for half of each thumb and a portion of her left index finger.
In February 2015, she began six months of rehab, most of it at the Ottawa Hospital Rehabilitation Centre.
She lived for a while with her mother, Shelley, in Limoges, Ont., before getting her own apartment in Ottawa. Insurance, fundraisers and crowdsourcing helped her adjust financially, but hardly covered her medical expenses.
Her prosthetic legs alone cost twice the roughly $100,000 raised through an online gofundme campaign.
Life in the city, meanwhile, was not for Stott. Her amputations made it impossible for her body to properly cool itself, leaving her intolerant of the urban summer heat. Additionally, she often found adapting to her situation difficult, especially in public.
Instead, she spent as much time as she could at her cottage at Lac Schryer, north of Thurso, Que., with her dogs.
It was where she said she felt most comfortable.
“My favourite part about still being alive is being able to enjoy nature. I love fishing and ATVing, being out with my dog, swimming, boating, and that was the hardest part, to think ‘Oh, my god, I’ll never do this again.’ ”
Joe Cannon, co-owner of the Irish Embassy, said he learned through a call from Stott’s family that she had died.
“That’s all that we’ve been told by the family, that Sarah passed away a couple of days ago and they’ll let us know when they’ve made any type of funeral arrangements,” Cannon said on Friday.
Cannon last saw Stott over the summer when she came to Montreal to attend a mutual friend’s book signing.
“It was good to see her,” Cannon said. “She looked well. She drove into town in her car.” The car, he added, had been adapted for her so she was able to drive with her hands.
“I’m just thinking how fragile life is,” he said. “Some things can just end so quickly.”