Australians have opened their hearts to three young children left orphaned after both of their parents were killed on a remote Outback road as they drove late at night to spend Christmas Day with family.
The three children, a five-year-old girl and her brothers aged two and one, were trapped in a car with their dead parents for 55 hours after the vehicle left a remote Western Australian road and flipped in the early hours of December 25.
When the Land Rover Discovery was located on Tuesday, the driver Jake Day, 28, and his partner Cindy Braddock, 25, were found dead in the vehicle which was overturned off the Corrigin-Kondinin Road – 258km west of Perth.
A GoFundMe page has already raised nearly $70,000 despite only being set up two days ago, with the money to help pay for the couple’s funerals and future expenses for the three orphaned children.
The family was making the late-night 200km journey back home to Kondinin as Mr Day was desperate to spend Christmas with his mother.
Australians have opened their hearts to the three children of Jake Day (pictured left) and Cindy Braddock (pictured right) with over $70,000 raised to help the three orphans after a fatal car crash killed the two adults
The fundraiser’s creator Casey Guyer wrote a message of appreciation for the tremendous response to the page.
‘Thank you everyone for the donations. This is going to make a world of a difference in the kids’ lives,’ the update read.
‘They are all doing well and surrounded by family.’
It is believed the children have been cleared of serious injury after arriving at Perth Children’s Hospital dehydrated after waiting in over 30C heat to be rescued.
Another fundraiser set up by Cindy’s elder sister Helen Braddock has raised over $3,000, which she said would go towards funerals and the children’s future.
‘My heart is broken for these two beautiful people taken too soon,’ Helen wrote.
The children were airlifted to hospital after the crashed vehicle was found by a close family friend just 10km from their destination, the WA wheatbelt town of Kondinin.
The five year old girl was hailed as a hero after she unbuckled her one year old brother freeing him from his seat
The family set out at 1am on Christmas Day with a plan to arrive early at Mr Day’s mother’s house after making a 200km journey from the town of Northam.
Nathan O’Donnell, who works at a Northam petrol station told the West Australian he saw the couple pull in at 1.11am on Christmas Day.
According to him the couple already looked ‘exhausted’.
‘They got out, put fuel in, then they came in, they went to the toilet, they came and bought drinks and snacks and stuff for the road,’ Mr O’Donnell said.
‘They looked very exhausted.
‘He told me he was heading to Kondinin and that it was a couple of hours drive.
‘He didn’t buy a coffee. Then he left, I told him good luck with the long drive.
‘Unfortunately, he never made it.’
The family had left Northam, WA, at about 1am on Sunday and were heading home to Kondinin, some 200km away
Mr Day’s cousin, Michael Read, said Jake may have been too tired to drive when he decided to push on to Kondinin.
Amid the tragedy, the oldest child – aged just five – has emerged a hero.
She saved her one-year-old brother’s life by undoing the buckle of his car seat.
WA Health told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday the children are undergoing treatment by medical and psychological specialists.
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‘All three children are in a stable condition. Emotional and psychological support is being provided to them,’ a spokesperson said.
Mike Atkinson, a former military survival instructor, told Daily Mail Australia how lucky the children were to make it out of the wreck.
He said heat stroke could have killed the children if they were forced to wait much longer for rescuers to reach them.
Severe dehydration can cause the tongue to swell, making breathing more and more difficult.
The three children – aged five, two and one – were pulled from the family’s overturned Land Rover Discovery on Tuesday afternoon, two and a half days after the accident
Mr Atkinson said in hot conditions, three days without water for 72 hours is about the limit for most ordinary people.
Thankfully, the children were found after almost 60 hours.
‘It’s obviously the kind of thing that could go either way, so assuming the children had no major injuries, their main risks would have been heat injury.
‘Their body’s thermostatic regulation would have been able to keep them in a safe zone through sweating, but that sweating resource is finite. You can’t keep that up forever.
‘The body needs to sweat to maintain a safe temperature, but eventually, our bodies run out of water to sweat.’
He said the fact the car’s windows were broken helped the children.
‘Had the car been in full sun with the windows intact would be difficult to survive. A car in sunlight with the windows can get up to 60 degrees in a matter of minutes.’
It comes as one of Australia’s top child psychologists warned that the children will need a lot of support in the coming years.
Cindy Braddock, 25, and Jake Day, 28, were killed when their their Land Rover Discovery left a remote WA highway and flipped
One of Australia’s top child psychologists warned that the fact the children were trapped for so long had the potential for ‘severe’ impacts in later years. Pictured, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg
‘The death of a parent in childhood is a traumatic experience,’ said Dr Michael Carr-Gregg.
‘A child’s individual personality, and the amount of time that they were exposed to the event, can influence their response,’ Dr Carr-Gregg said.
‘Severe reactions are linked to the suddenness of the event and the degree to which the child was rendered powerless during the trauma.
‘Other factors, such as the duration of exposure to the trauma, and whether the vent was experienced in isolation, with other people can play a significant part in how a child responds.’
But he said with a strong support system, the children will process the loss and go on to thrive.
