B.C. mudslide victim identified as Calgary rugby player

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Steven Taylor had four children.

Last Monday, as flooding and mudslides ravaged British Columbia, Dean Hopkins got a distraught call from his close friend’s wife, saying her husband was missing along Highway 99 near Pemberton.

That phone call kicked off several stress-filled days for Hopkins, which ended in tragedy when his old rugby buddy Steven (Sanchez) Taylor was confirmed dead.

Taylor moved to B.C. from Calgary about a year ago for construction work. When his wife lost touch with him while he was driving through one of the slide-affected areas last weekend, she needed help finding him, Hopkins said.

The father of four had been at a work camp north of Vancouver, but the camp shut because of the bad weather. He decided to head home despite the bad roads, and called his wife to let her know.

Then there was no further word.

Pemberton SAR continue searching the damage left by a mudslide which came down on Highway 99 on Monday, Nov. 15 2021. (Courtesy Pemberton SAR/Twitter)

Hopkins started calling Taylor’s colleagues and listened closely to eyewitness accounts of a mudslide that had hit south of Lillooet. He called hotels in case they’d seen Taylor. Taylor’s wife filed a missing-person report.

“His cellphone, whenever I call him, is always picked up,” Hopkins said. But no one was picking it up this time.

The days passed and they held out hope, he said. But then RCMP phoned Taylor’s wife late Wednesday, saying they’d found three bodies in the debris of the Duffey Lake mudslide and that one of them matched the description she’d given them. She immediately broke the news to Hopkins.

“There’s a difference between losing someone and having someone ripped out of your life at short notice. She is absolutely inconsolable.”

Steven (Sanchez) Taylor was a beloved rugby player in Calgary who had recently moved to B.C. (Sanchez Family Support Fund/Facebook)

Taylor leaves behind two daughters, two sons, and a grandchild.

The loss is also being felt within the rugby community, as Taylor played for years for the Calgary Irish Athletic Club. He is being remembered as a tough competitor and a mentor to young players.

“On the field there were no tougher competitors and off the field he gave back to the game he loved as a volunteer,” Calgary Irish Rugby wrote online about the loss of their teammate. (CalgaryIrish/Instagram)

“There’ll be hundreds, if not thousands of rugby friends, players, throughout our city and province that will be feeling exactly the same. That was the kind of man he was,” Hopkins said about his teammate and friend.

An online fundraiser has been set up called the ‘Sanchez Family Support Fund.’

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Mounties said Saturday that the bodies of three men were recovered from a landslide area on Highway 99 between Lillooet and Pemberton, along a section of the route known as the Duffey Lake Road. They said the bodies were discovered over the course of last week, and that they raised the death toll from that mudslide to four.

The body of a woman was recovered by crews not far away last Monday.

Mirsad and Anita Hadzic were killed in the Highway 99 mudslide, according to an online fundraiser. (Courtesy GoFundMe)

Two of the other four victims have been identified as Anita Hadzic and her husband Mirsad. They were travelling along the highway when the mudslide came down on Nov. 15, as they were trying to get home to Vancouver from a weekend getaway in the Okanagan on Nov. 15.

The couple leave behind a two-year-old girl.

“Anita and Mirsad were the most wonderful parents. They were kind, hardworking and loved by so many,” reads the GoFundMe page.

Read more: Fundraiser set up for little girl who lost parents in Highway 99 mudslide near Lillooet

The identity of the fourth body recovered has not been revealed.

“We have been continuing the search for one more man, however search efforts have been hampered by weather and site conditions. Our thoughts continue to be with all of those who have been impacted in this terrible tragedy,” the RCMP said in a release on Saturday.

With files from Asadeh Kojouri and Hana Mae Nassar