B.C. care home resident who died of COVID-19 had ‘strong will and quick wit’

A resident of the North Vancouver care home who has died of COVID-19 is being remembered for her strength and smile.

Sandra Cairns died at Lynn Valley Care Centre, where a cluster of coronavirus cases were some of the first reported in the province.

“She was an amazing woman with a strong will and a quick wit,” wrote her daughter-in-law, Anita Coueffin-Cairns, in a tribute on social media on Friday.

Cairns was a registered nurse and a civilian police officer in Vancouver, her daughter-in-law wrote. She spent 25 years at the police station near Main and Hastings streets, working as a guard and a nurse to women who were incarcerated.

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“It must have taken a very strong will to do the kind of job that she had to do,” Coueffin-Cairns wrote.

She said her mother-in-law was initially hesitant to enter a care home, but eventually learned to make the most of it.

“The nurses told us how she had a smile for them every morning when they woke her up, and a smile every night when they put her to bed.”

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Coueffin-Cairns closed her note with a fond memory of the time she sneaked a rum and eggnog to her mother-in-law while she was in hospital at Christmas in 2011.

“I think I may have gotten in her good books after that,” she wrote.

Seven of the eight COVID-19 deaths in B.C. have been linked to the Lynn Valley Care Centre.