Family, friends, colleagues and students are trying their best to come to grips with the tragic passing of primary school teacher Paula Corbin.
The 44-year-old was involved in a two-vehicle crash Sunday afternoon on the ABC Highway, near Coverley, Christ Church. She succumbed to her injuries at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Many described her as an absolute gem.
When the DAILY NATION visited Corbin’s home in Park Road, Bush Hall, St Michael, it was closed. Next door at her mother Coleen Corbin’s house, the mood was sombre.
Sister Annette Corbin said she was “a very loving woman”, before leaving to go to the doctor.
Corbin’s best friend of 28 years, Laurie Gaskin, spoke on behalf of the family. “Everyone is taking this news pretty hard. From the time this news broke yesterday around 4 p.m., everyone is just in disbelief that our Paula is gone. You just can never prepare yourself for something like this.
“Like anyone else, people would have their ups and downs but you would never know with Paula. You would never even hear a peep out of her if something was bothering her. She was a very kind, loving person. I know she loved her family . . . . She was a true friend for me,” he added, shaking his head.
Corbin had one daughter, Melissa who is 19, and Gaskin said he knew she was planning to get married soon.
He said she loved children and that drew her into the teaching fraternity as soon as they graduated from the Alleyne School in 1990.
“She said she was going Erdiston and train to be a teacher. She told me at the time she was only going to do it for five years. But she did it until the day she died, that’s how much she loved children,” he added.
The mood at Lawrence T. Gay Memorial, where Corbin was a Class 1 teacher, was just as sombre. Some who did lessons with her sat with a counsellor.
Principal Jacinta Alexander, in an interview with Starcom Network, said she was “a very good teacher”.
“It’s a sad occasion. When you miss someone like that, especially tragically like that, it would be very offsetting. We had some children who were very emotional; they were attached to her . . . . She would have developed friendships within the last five years she was at the school, so obviously people are going to be affected,” Alexander added. (DB)
