A Whim to See Umbrellas Proves Fatal : Camarillo Woman Had Rare Illness but Lived for the Minute

Lori Keevil-Mathews knew a rare disease would some day take her life and vowed to enjoy the time she had left.

So Saturday on a whim, she and her husband, Michael, jumped into their car and rushed to see Christo’s huge yellow umbrellas at Tejon Pass.

A few hours later, the 34-year-old Camarillo insurance agent was dead--killed when a 488-pound umbrella tore loose from its foundation in a driving wind and crushed her against a boulder.

“I’m just so numb,” Michael Mathews said Sunday at their home in the Woodside Park area. “She was such a wonderful person. She lived life for the minute. She lived it to the fullest.”

Mathews took a deep breath, sank into his leather chair and squeezed back tears. He slowly recounted the events that led to the death of his wife, who suffered from a disease that attacked her adrenal glands.

“We took the first exit at Lebec and stopped as soon as we came up to an umbrella that was near the road,” said Mathews, assistant to the city manager of Westlake Village.

The couple got out of their car and watched as rolling, black clouds moved up a canyon, swallowing the yellow umbrellas that dotted the hillsides.

“The clouds were moving toward us,” Mathews said. “Then we were hit with the wind.”

A huge gust whipped an umbrella about 40 feet away, leaving it teetering on its stand, Mathews said.

“We tried to step back across the road to get away from it,” he said. “Lori hunched over to try to keep the wind out of her contact lenses.”

Then, in a tremendous gust, the umbrella broke loose.

“It blew over sideways and came at us,” Mathews said. “I grabbed Lori’s jacket to try to pull her away.”

But it was too late, he said.

“It hit my knee and spun me to the ground,” Mathews said. “Then it hit Lori and threw her into the rocks. It was unbelievable.”

Mathews said he ran to his wife and screamed at the top of his lungs for help. Minutes later, authorities pronounced the woman dead at the scene.

Because of her illness, identified as pheochromocytoma, Lori Keevil-Mathews warned her husband when they married two years ago that she only had 10 more years to live.

The rare disease, detected in Keevil-Mathews at age 16, causes nonmalignant tumors that increase secretion of the hormones that regulate heart rate and blood pressure.

Years ago, doctors removed both of her adrenal glands. Recently she underwent tests to see if another tumor was forming.

Keevil-Mathews told her husband that if she were ever in an accident she would need special medication immediately. But Mathews said his wife apparently died of head injuries and not of the illness, which investigators confirmed.

Though the disease left her exhausted, Keevil-Mathews had insisted on remaining active.

She and her husband met while playing on a softball team in Thousand Oaks about four years ago. Both were members of the Conejo Valley Ski Club.

She had worked at two insurance companies in Thousand Oaks before joining State Farm Insurance in Camarillo about a year ago.

She was the mother of an 8-year-old daughter, Jenny, from a previous marriage. The girl was visiting her father in Acton when her mother was killed.

“You’re never going to find a better person,” said Melanie Bergdahl, Keevil-Mathews’ best friend. “She said she felt blessed to be alive.”