Two Cremona teens are being mourned by family and friends after an accident earlier this year claimed both their lives.
“From a young age people would remark on Taylore’s happy countenance. She had big attentive eyes that took in the world around her. She was intuitively aware of how others were feeling and made it a personal mission to be inclusive and encouraging to those around her, especially for the underdog or the under-loved,” Jackie and Darren Dinzey remembering their daughter in a letter special to the Eagle.
Taylore Dinzey, 17, was pronounced deceased at the scene as the driver – after a two-vehicle collision on April 30 – and Dylan Barrows, 19, the passenger, succumbed to his injuries in the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary six days after the collision.
Described as her big brother’s protector, mom’s side-kick and daddy’s girl, Taylore was also known to love adventure and she would have turned 18 on May 23.
“She was a stargazer, car roof-top dancer, sunset appreciator, a finder of roads leading somewhere or nowhere (and) her circle of friends reached wide as Taylore was not only kind and fun but inclusive and compassionate,” the Dinzey’s wrote.
“Taylore loved God and loved people like Jesus. Her family and friends will carry on this legacy inspired by the way she lived… Taylore fully lived, fully loved and was fully loving.”
Charges are currently pending against a tow truck driver, who was travelling northbound on Range Road 273 when attempting to turn west on Highway 42, and collided with a Toyota RAV 4 travelling eastbound. Police say the driver of the tow truck and a passenger in the vehicle were uninjured in the collision.
Although RCMP officers did not release the names of the two deceased teens involved in the collision, it has since been confirmed it was Barrows and Dinzey.
Jenaka Down of Carstairs did not personally know Taylore but has been good friends with Barrows for a few years. She last talked to him the day before the collision.
She said friends and family were hopeful he would pull through because he would respond to visitors, including herself, with subtle movements.
“If you’d talk about something that he liked or something that he’d remember, he’d move back and he’d squeeze your hand back,” said Down.
“But the doctors ruled it as involuntary.”
She said he was a non-judgmental person with a good sense of humour. His friends called him owl because he would often sit on top of his car and perch like an owl while making owl calls, she said with a smile.
“He was kind of like a friend to everybody,” she said.
“I just miss talking to him and having somebody always there to talk to.”
Innisfail RCMP said it could take a couple of months before charges are laid in the collision.
- with files from Patricia Riley
