A 5-year-old girl rescued her baby brother after their parents were killed in a car accident and the three children were trapped in a car for more than two days in a rural and isolated part of Western Australia, the Australian Nine News network, a CNN affiliate, reported.
In a statement, Western Australian police said the family's Land Rover Discovery was found on Tuesday morning in Condinin, about 280km east of the capital Perth. The parents, Cindy Burdock, 25, and Jake Day, 28, were pronounced dead at the scene, it said. Police
said their three children - a 5-year-old and her siblings, aged 2 and 1 - survived the accident, which happened on Christmas Day, but were trapped in the vehicle with their dead parents in high temperatures until they were found by a relative.
The parents who passed away (photo: screenshot, Twitter)
The family in better times (photo: official website, official website)
The scene of the horrific accident in Western Australia (photo: official website, official website)
"If the 5-year-old hadn't released her one-year-old brother's baby seat, he wouldn't be with us today," a relative named Mike Reid told the television station.
"She will understand it only in a few years," he added.
"They were trapped in a car for 55 hours in a temperature of 30 degrees. No one knows what exactly they went through," Reed said.
The children were rushed to the hospital due to severe dehydration.
The three are expected to be released from the hospital in the coming days, Nine News reported.
The town of Kundinin expressed shock at the horrific accident.
Helen Whitebeard, a friend of the family, said the community "will never get over it".
She was supposed to meet Cindy Burdock after the holiday, but now she has to mourn her.
"The town will never be the same. Cindy did a great job with the babies, and now they don't have a mother."
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