'Selfless' man killed in B.C. mudslide used last moments to save his mother, sister says

Brett Diedrichs' last words were spoken in the way his sister says he spoke throughout his entire life: to help someone else.

Diedrichs, 36, was standing on the main highway outside of Lillooet, B.C., with his mother when he realized a mudslide was charging down the hill above them. In an instant, he shouted at his mother.

"They heard a really intense, loud rumble. The ground shook. The last thing my mom remembers is my brother screaming, 'Mom, get back in your car.' Which she did, just in the nick of time," Kirsten Diederichs, Brett's older sister, said in an interview Wednesday. 

"My brother just couldn't make it back. He was immediately lost."

The Diederichs family has identified Brett, a trained paramedic and well-known figure in Toronto's restaurant scene, as the fifth person believed to have been killed by a landslide Nov. 15 in an area of B.C.'s Highway 99 known as the Duffey Lake Road.

The hillside slipped away during one of the worst rainstorms the province has seen in decades, sending a rush of mud and debris straight into the cars and people on the road below.

By a miracle, Kirsten said, Brett's mother and partner weren't physically hurt.

Brett and his longtime partner, Madison Van Rijn, were on the road last weekend because they were moving from Peachland, B.C., to Victoria.

They'd been living with Brett's mother, Brenda, in the Okanagan city since 2020, after Brett lost his restaurant job during the pandemic. A trained paramedic, Brett spent his last summer in B.C. working on the front lines during the province's brutal wildfire season.

He and Van Rijn made plans to move to the island for a fresh start with a more temperate climate, immediate access to the ocean and a vibrant culinary scene.

The timing seemed ideal — his mother's home in Peachland had sold with a closing date of Sunday, Nov. 14, and the new place in Victoria was available the following day. 

Brett and Van Rijn left the Interior for the coast with Brenda following in her own SUV.

The worst of the storm hit that Sunday. By late afternoon, mudslides and washouts had knocked out two of the three major highways they needed to take.

The family holed up for the night in Kamloops and, on Monday, they headed for their last option: Highway 99.