A Chilliwack woman who suffered devastating injuries trying to save a man from being hit by a train is about to lose her home.
Julie Callaghan remembers stopping at the Broadway Street rail crossing on May 26, 2018 on her way to a dinner event.
She spotted Matthew Jarvis in his motorized wheelchair, rocking back and forth in an effort to free the back wheels from where they got stuck in the tracks.
Callaghan, dressed in heels, and another woman who saw what was happening sprang into action. They ran toward Jarvis as the CN train approached.
Despite frenzied efforts to dislodge the wheelchair in time, the train struck.
Jarvis, 40, was killed by the impact, while Callaghan, 46, and the other woman jumped back.
“I just did what I had to do,” Callaghan told The Chilliwack Progress in 2018 about her efforts.
“I just looked and it was that moment we had to let go. We just let go. We knew we had to save ourselves.”
She wants everyone to know she never saw her actions as heroic.
But many people in Chilliwack and beyond recognized her selflessness, including the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, which honoured Callaghan with a prestigious Carnegie Hero award in 2019 for “extraordinary heroism.”
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Callaghan said she felt compelled to try to help a fellow human being in trouble.
“I wasn’t trying to be a hero that day,” she said. “I was just trying to get to a dinner function.”
Her right hand was clipped by the moving train, breaking knuckles, ripping tendons, and tearing a huge gash in her hand.
Callaghan underwent the partial amputation of her hand, and her life has never been the same.
Things did not go well for her in the wake of the life-changing, traumatic incident.
Callaghan ended up filing a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court in August 2019 naming Canadian National Railway as a defendant, citing the severe injuries she suffered, and financial hardships due to her inability to work, said her lawyer Luke Zacharias.
She suffers complex regional pain syndrome on top of physical and psychological effects from the incident. She has chronic pain, sleepless nights, and nightmares.
It has all taken a dramatic toll on her in every conceivable way.
“It changed my life,” Callaghan said, adding she has not been able to bounce back.
Waiting for her court case has dragged on interminably, and the tentative trial date is not until March 17, 2025.
A mediation between the parties in September did not yield results.
Recently foreclosure proceedings on Callaghan’s home have started, which amps up the pressure since it would signify a cataclysmic loss, said Zacharias.
Her home is something Callaghan takes great pride in and had worked hard to obtain, he said.
With medical appointments, surgeries, hospital visits and therapy, Callaghan has been unable to return to work in any capacity, her lawyer said. She struggles daily and has had to rely on the Chilliwack Food Bank and the generosity of others, something no one would guess.
“It is only a matter of time before she is left homeless, with nowhere to live,” Zacharias said.
They are seeking compensation for Callaghan’s pain and suffering, past and future wage losses, future care and housekeeping, and out-of-pocket expenses, he said.
Negotiations with CN officials were undertaken in an attempt to arrive at a settlement but things have stalled.
Callaghan mourns the vitality of her former self.
“I was happy-go-lucky and had tons of energy before this happened,” she said. “I was inspired every day.
“Now I stay in bed a lot, and I have anxiety. It’s just a lot to handle, and I literally have nobody.”
With the trial still too far off in the distance, and the prospect of losing her home imminent, they are urgently seeking to resolve this matter sooner rather than later. The hope is that CN officials will be convinced to take another “more serious” look at the claim, Zacharias concluded.
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