Police tell of panicked attempts to free two children from vehicle flipped into dam
Police have revealed the panicked minutes a man and woman struggled to free two children from an overturned SUV that had flipped as it crashed into Wyaralong dam, near Beaudesert.
Queensland police said two adults and four children were in a Land Rover Discovery when it broke through a road barrier, rolling down an embankment before ending up on its roof in water at Wyaralong dam, near Beaudesert, about 2:00pm.
Two children died after they were trapped underwater. The girl, 4, and boy, 13, were travelling in their family’s four-wheel-drive near Beaudesert about 2pm on Sunday when the vehicle rolled down an embankment into the water.
Police say the Landrover Discovery apparently veered into a barrier on the left side of the road at high speed then “skewed across to the opposite side”.
“Consequently the angle it’s gone into that other barrier has resulted in it flipping and rolling down that embankment into the water,” Inspector Doug McDonald told reporters on Monday.
A man, 26, and woman, 33, were able to free themselves along with a five-week-old baby girl and boy aged one.
“Assistance was then provided by passersby,” Insp McDonald said.
“Unfortunately, those two children were trapped in the vehicle longer than other occupants.
“There was some difficulty getting some of the doors open … to extract the kids.
“Once they were taken from the vehicle (there were) attempts for quite some time to revive those children.”
Two children were pronounced dead at the scene.
The surviving children remain in hospital. The boy is in a stable condition and the girl suffered no serious injuries.
The man and woman suffered non-life-threatening injuries and will undergo surgery later on Monday.
Insp McDonald said the family were travelling from Pimpama, on the Gold Coast, to their home in Pratten, near Warwick in the Southern Downs Region, when the accident happened.
Alcohol doesn’t appear to havebeen a factor and the car was travelling on a straight section of road with a 100 km/h limit.
A police officer suffered minor injuries when the police car he was traveling to the dam in on Sunday rolled onto its roof on an unsealed road.
Police appealled for anyone with dashcam footage from the area on Sunday to contact Crime Stroppers.
