A Victoria-based man has launched a GoFundMe in order to make ends meet after losing his leg, his ability to work and becoming unhoused—all for trying to be a Good Samaritan.
This is a story of resilience, patience and mutual aid working to help someone who had been left to fend for himself.
It all started in December of last year when former roofer Christopher Kelieff was walking towards Esquimalt on Rock Bay Avenue when he saw a woman lying on a set of stairs and he went to check on her.
The woman ended up being okay, but Kelieff sat with her for a period of time anyway just chatting, trying to ensure she would be okay for the evening.
While talking to the woman, Kelieff noticed a group of three young women walking along the street, with a camper van following them at a slow pace.
This is when things took a turn for the worse.
He says he called out to them to watch out for the van, and took it upon himself to tell the driver of the van to leave them alone.
“I approached the van and as I was telling him to take off a mumbled voice from the back was trying to get my attention,” Kelieff told Victoria Buzz.
“It sounded like someone gagged at the mouth.”
He says he tried to look behind a sheet curtain that separated the front of the camper van from the back, but wasn’t able to see in the rear.
Kelieff says the situation then escalated when he claimed the man grabbed a tire iron and lunged at him.
At this point, Kelieff wanted to try to alert others on the street that he believed someone was in the back of the van against their will, and called out to some individuals he could see down the street.
He says what happened next “happened so fast,” but the man started driving his car directly towards Kelieff.
“As soon as his butt hit the driver’s seat he had it started, in gear, cranked the wheel towards me then floored it,” said Kelieff.
“The van jumped the curb then hit me. I hit the hood and it took me for a short distance before hitting a tree.”
Kelieff says his leg was caught between the tree and the bumper. When the van had pulled back slightly, he tried to turn and run, but realized his leg had completely snapped.
“I spun around landing on the sidewalk. I sat up and tried to make my leg face the proper way but it just flopped down,” said Kelieff.
“That’s when I saw the blood and my bone sticking out my leg and through my jeans.”
He says he had to grab his leg above his knee and squeeze as tight as he could to try and tourniquet the leg, while attempting to call for help.
Kelieff claims he then turned and saw the man who had hit him standing above him, tire iron in hand.
“He must have been in shock because he didn’t hit me with it,” he continued.
Instead of hitting Kelieff, he yelled down the street to some on-lookers for someone to call an ambulance.
After losing a lot of blood, Kelieff then thought he might be dying.
“A couple minutes had passed since hearing him yell and I was starting to fade away, it felt,” he told Victoria Buzz.
“Things were blackening and my screams for help turned to low yells with not much energy.”
At this point, the woman Kelieff had been sitting with on the stairs came to his rescue and put a blanket over his wound as a make-shift bandage, trying to hold his leg together.
It was then that police showed up and an officer applied a proper tourniquet to his leg, before being told that he was about to experience significant pain.
Kelieff then passed out and woke up in the intensive care unit of a hospital, with his leg completely cut open and rods having been put in place to hold it together.
Police came by to question Kelieff, and proceeded to tell him that the man had turned himself in the next day. VicPD told him the man had been arrested and was not going to be released.
VicPD confirmed they arrested 34-year-old Cristian Ganzo-Murpy in this incident. After he turned himself in, he was charged with one count of aggravated assault, one count of assault with a weapon and one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
They could not provide additional information, as the matter is now still before the courts.
The following day, doctors came in and informed Kelieff that they would likely have to amputate his leg.
They said that he could either amputate and be healed very soon, or they could try to save the leg, but it would take around three years of healing and at least seven intrusive surgeries.
“I begged them to try and save my leg,” Kelieff recalled.
“Unfortunately, four days later they told me there was no pulse in my foot meaning the blood wasn’t getting to it. It died.”
At this point the only option was to remove the leg, just below the knee.
“It was the biggest shock ever waking up and your leg ends at the knee,” he continued.
After spending some time recovering in hospital, he eventually had to leave. However, Kelieff said he had no family in Victoria and nowhere to go.
It was then that he heard SOLID Outreach had recently started up at Dowler Place, where they were helping people rehabilitate and find housing, in addition to their work trying to help people stay clean of substance use after going to recovery.
“I have a friend who works for them and messaged her explaining my situation,” said Kelieff.
“She asked if she could share the story with her coworker. They then came to see me at the hospital and filled out the paperwork to get me to their new place.”
Once he was in with SOLID, his case worker helped him achieve some personal goals, as well as helping him with physiotherapy and counseling, given the traumatic event he had just endured.
After finding success through SOLID’s Dowler Place facility, his case worker connected Kelieff with slightly subsidized housing, where he has been living for the past few months.
Victoria Buzz spoke with Kelieff’s case manager, who said that he was one of their best success stories to-date, and they are very proud of how far he’s come, given his incredibly difficult circumstances.
Despite these wins, Kelieff says it has now been over seven months since the incident that took my leg and he still can’t work and still doesn’t have a prosthetic leg.
In an effort to be transparent, Kelieff says his only income available is through disability, which only gets him around $1,500 per month.
He says his rent is $1,300, which doesn’t leave much for him to live with.
“It’s going to take a while before I get my leg and get used to the new mobility I’m going to have,” Kelieff continued.
“From being a roofer taking home at least $2,500 every two weeks, to almost half that for the month has been a big change. And hard.”
Kelieff launched a GoFundMe in order to try to help him make some additional funds while he waits for a prosthetic leg and continues with physiotherapy.
It may be a while yet before he is able to work, and he thinks he will have to try to transition careers, as it will be difficult to go back to roofing with a prosthetic leg.
The fundraiser was launched on July 2nd, and since that time, has only garnered $417 of his modest $3,500 goal.
Click here to help Kelieff’s journey to healing.
