WA Kondinin Christmas crash: Family of couple killed warn ‘don’t drive tired’

Family of the couple who tragically died in a horror Outback crash that left their three young children stranded in the wreckage for days have warned Australians: ‘Don’t drive tired’. 

Cindy Braddock, 25, and Jake Day, 28, were killed when their Land Rover Discovery careened off the remote Corrigin-Kondinin Road, in Western Australia‘s wheatbelt, and flipped in the middle of the night. 

The Christmas Day tragedy, 10km from the family’s home, stranded their three children, aged five, two and one, in the mangled wreck of the vehicle, until they were found 55 hours later after a desperate search.

Cindy Braddock, 25, and Jake Day, 28, were killed when their their Land Rover Discovery left a remote WA highway and flipped

The family had left Northam, WA, at about 1am on Sunday and were heading home to Kondinin, some 200km away

‘Know what your body limit is,’ Michael Read, who is a cousin to one of the parents, told the ABC. 

‘Don’t drive tired. If you’re going to want to be somewhere, just stay the night at your family.’     

The warning comes after Nathan O’Donnell, who works at a petrol station in the Western Australia town of Northam, about 100km east of Perth, saw the couple pull in at 1.11am on Christmas Day.

‘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’Driscoll 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 couple had last been seen at around 1am on Christmas Day, travelling in this maroon Land Rover Discovery wagon from Northam to Kondinin

The car was found upside-down in an embankment just 10Km away from the family’s destination on Corrigin-Kondinin Road, just before midday on Tuesday 

The deceased couple’s five-year-old daughter is now being hailed a hero for saving the life of her two baby brothers.

The little girl was able to free herself and then unclip her one-year-old brother from his carseat. 

After a frantic search and public appeal by police, the car was found by close family friends, with the children still inside the wreckage with their dead parents.

Mr Read says without the girl’s efforts her infant brother would not have survived.

‘What I’ve gathered is the five-year-old became unstuck in the vehicle, and she then got the one-year-old out of the car seat, then they were stuck in the car for 55 hours in 30C heat,’ he said. 

‘It would have been hard for the three children to be in the car for that whole time. Nobody knows what they went through.

Family members say the death of the fun-loving young couple is a severe blow to their tight-knit community

‘And if it wasn’t for the five-year-old undoing the buckle of the one-year old’s car seat, he wouldn’t be with us today.’

Mr Day’s stepfather Richard Parker also praised the five-year-old’s courageous actions.

‘She’s a legend, she always has been… she’s a strong little girl,’ he told The West, adding that he had also been out searching and was about 10km from the crash scene when the children were found alive.

‘I appreciate the people who were out there helping us look for them. We’ll get through it, we’ve just got to plod along.’

Mr Day and Ms Braddock pose with their three young children, all who miraculously survived the crash and the long wait after to be rescued

Mr Read said the children are ‘being loved by family, nurses and doctors’ since arriving at the hospital and are all ‘doing fine’.   

The extended family are now taking it one step at a time in deciding what is next for the children.

Ms Braddock, Mr Day and their children were reported missing on Christmas Day when they didn’t show up to a family celebration.

Mr Read said the community will be devastated by the loss of the young parents.

A GoFundMe page to raise money for the orphaned children has already seen more than $27,000 pledged.  

Ms Braddock, Mr Day (pictured) and their children were reported missing on Christmas Day when they didn’t show up to a family celebration

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