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1 year ago
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A heartbroken mother who lost her two-year-old daughter in a horror car crash eight years ago has shared advice to traumatised families affected by road deaths.
Katrina Brown was driving through South Australia's Yorke Peninsula on Good Friday in 2015 when her Mitsubishi 4WD ute left the road, flipped and hit a tree.
In a speech for World Remembrance Day for Road Traffic Victims on Sunday, Ms Brown confessed: 'I will bear mother's guilt until I meet her again.'
For the 2015 Easter weekend, she, her husband Kingsley and their two children - Indie Rose and then five-year-old son Taj - were holidaying at Corny Point, a three hours' drive from Adelaide.
On April 3, Ms Brown took Indie Rose and Taj for a drive to visit nearby family while Mr Brown went fishing.
Heartbroken mother Katrina Brown (above) said she did 'nothing wrong' to cause the crash but confessed: 'I will bear mother's guilt until I meet her again'
Two-year-old Indie Rose Brown (above) was killed in a car crash in 2015, her mother lost control of the car on an unsealed road
However, she lost control on an unsealed section of North Coast Rd, forcing the ute off the road where it collided with a tree.
Ms Brown and Taj survived the crash but little Indie was killed instantly.
The devastated mother said she 'wasn't doing anything wrong' at the time of the crash but that 'the most tragic of circumstances' saw her daughter taken from her.
'My guilt is that of my own motherhood, that I couldn't protect my daughter - not that I was doing something wrong,' she said, The Advertiser reported.
Ms Brown applauded SA Police for the support it provided her following the crash as well as her loved ones.
She has since begun volunteering with the Road Trauma Support Team of South Australia and encouraged anyone suffering from the effects of a road death to reach out, saying it will 'make the world of difference'.
Ms Brown (pictured with Indie Rose) encouraged everyone affected by road trauma to reach out to support groups, saying it will 'make the world of difference' to their grief
'I've spoken to a couple of parents and I think it's really evident … you lose a sense of your old self, the old Kat is not here today,' she said.
'You have to rebuild yourself because you're a shell and you rebuild yourself to be people who can coexist in a society without your loved one.'
So far this year in SA, 101 people have lost their lives in 94 fatal crashes compared to 71 in the whole of 2022.
Another 747 people have been seriously injured in 645 road incidents across the state this year.
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