An Okanagan elementary school is in mourning after a deadly crash on the Trans-Canada Highway over the weekend.
Thirty-one-year-old Tayah Lloyd was killed when an eastbound GMC pickup left the highway east of Chilliwack, crossed the centre median and hit her Toyota Tacoma head-on as she sat in the passenger seat.
Lloyd, a kindergarten teacher at Kelowna’s Anne McClymont Elementary School, was five months pregnant.
Parent Eyrely Webber said Lloyd involved students in her pregnancy by revealing the baby’s gender and discussing baby names.
She described Lloyd as a bright light that students and parents will miss dearly.
“From day one she just found a way to make kids who were shy welcome, kids who were anxious calm. There was a softness about her,” Webber said.
Counsellors were at the school to help students deal with the loss of their teacher.
“Anytime you get tragic news of a loss of one of your colleagues or someone who is working with children, it impacts you,” Okanagan Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Kaardal said.
“It impacts your heart when you get that news, it’s unexpected. There’s always that beginning of the grieving process and loss.
“I think that’s very true for the school community.”
Lloyd’s 29-year-old husband, who was driving at the time, and the 46-year-old driver of the eastbound pickup remain in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
— With files from John Hua