Tik Tok video of Gympie teen Rykah Burr goes viral online
A heartwarming video, of a beloved Gympie teenager and football player killed in a crash, has gone viral online with more than one million views.
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A heartwarming video, featuring a hand-drawn image of a beloved Gympie teenager who passed away in 2021, has gone viral with more than one million views and 217,000 likes.
Rykah Burr, 18, tragically passed away in April after a horrific crash at Wolvi which left him and another man with life-threatening injuries.
News of the treasured teenager’s death sent shockwaves through the Gympie community, with a crowd dressed in navy and white turning out to farewell the James Nash student at his funeral on the Gympie Cats oval where he played football.
Now, almost a year on from his death, a Tik Tok video posted by user @Tylahrose02 shows a young woman being handed a Christmas present while a cover of Calum Scott’s You Are The Reason plays.
“My best friend and I recently had to bury a close friend,” the caption read.
“She wasn’t able to get a photo with him for her formal so I got someone to draw a photo of him (next to her in) her formal dress.”
The woman is seen sobbing after opening the present.
The video was posted on Christmas Day, and at the time of publishing, had garnered more than one million views and 217 thousand likes.
The creator of the video declined to be interviewed, but said in a comment on the post it was their first Christmas without Rykah.
“I wanted to make Christmas more special for her … I knew it would be difficult for her,” she wrote.
Messages of love and sympathy from other users also flowed from comments.
“Half of my heart would die with my best friend if he passed, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Tik Tok user momma.son0424 wrote.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, losing someone is one of the hardest things you can go through,” user fatemostoned wrote.
Tik Tok user Ashleemccosker described the video as “beautiful”.
The second clip, where the drawing itself is revealed, had reached more than 290,000 views and 27,000 likes on Tik Tok at the time of publishing.
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