SEATTLE — An anonymous investor has paid off the $360,000 mortgage of a man who lost his house and wife in last year’s Oso landslide.
The investor was moved to act after seeing a news account about Tim Ward, whose wife, Brandy, 37, was one of 43 people killed in the slide near Oso on March 22, 2014.
Tim Ward, rescued in the first few hours after the slide, was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with a crushed pelvis.
Darcy Donohoe-Wilmot, a spokeswoman for Chase Bank, said the donor is a JPMorgan Chase private bank client who read about Ward’s case in recent news coverage of the slide’s anniversary.
“He contacted his banker and said he wanted to help,” Donohoe-Wilmot said. “He said, ‘How much is the mortgage?’ and said he wanted to pay it off.”
Donohoe-Wilmot said the deal was completed last week and that Ward has not been told the identity of the donor, who wants to remain anonymous.
Donohoe-Wilmot said Ward had been working with Chase’s “special-cases unit” to negotiate a settlement of the VA loan.
Ward has been living in Arlington with his dog, Blue, who lost a leg after being trapped in the slide for three days.
According to state and federal damage assessments last year, 30 of the 42 homes in the destroyed neighborhood were primary residences. None of those 30 had landslide insurance and almost all belonged to low-income families. The average market value of the destroyed homes was $164,717.
