What Happened to Toyota World Runners?
Stacey Tourout and Matthew Yeomans, the Canadian couple who gained a lot of fame from their adventurous road trip, died on August 7 while traveling near Trout Lake in British Columbia. According to CBC, the news was confirmed by Stacey Tourout's mother through a social media post.
The post reads:
"They died together in an off-road accident in the beautiful mountains of British Columbia that they loved so much."
"Please keep us and them in your thoughts and prayers as we navigate this devastating end to an amazing love story," Colleen Tourout wrote.
According to their YouTube bio, the couple became famous for building the world’s first Land Cruiser Chinook in 100 days.
The couple had a YouTube channel named Toyota World Runners, with nearly 200,000 subscribers. They shared all their road trip experiences on their channel.
On the day the incident occurred, the search and rescue team was alerted at around 7:30 PM.
Mark Jennings-Bates, a member of Kaslo Search and Rescue (SAR), said that the cause of the incident is unknown and that he is unsure if they were filming the trip at the time of the accident.
He also stated that his team found one of the victims dead, while the other was taken to the hospital.
Watch VANCOUVER ISLAND | The Off-Road Version
Shaun, the creator of The Story Till Now YouTube channel, shared a post on Facebook:
I’m having a hard time finding the right words to say today. I’d never met Matthew and Stacey from @toyotaworldrunners in person. I was a fan, like many of you, of their YouTube channel and I loved what they were doing. Matthew and I have been chatting back forth online since they were in South America.
We’d talk about our adventures, share pictures and discuss YouTube things, and talk about collaboration ideas when they got back. They almost came with us to Haida Gwaii last summer, but there was a delay getting their truck back from South America. It was a series of near misses where we almost got together to do something, but it just never quite worked out due to schedules.
I spoke to Matthew on the phone last week just after my Jeep broke down, while I was trying to figure out how to get it home. We joked about how we would have finally met up the next day if not for my Jeep breaking down, but talked about getting some firm plans on the books for a trip next month.
They tragically passed away that very next day in an accident, and I’m just devastated over it. They were so young and full of life, so talented, and this is a huge loss for our off-road community, their friends and family, and the world.
The couple’s fans were shocked by the news, and many heartfelt tributes have flooded social media.
Mark Jennings-Bates has advised people to be very careful while going off-roading.
