The dad of a 16-year-old girl was able to track her down using the Life360 app after the car she was in left the road and ended up in a water-filled ditch near Sittingbourne
The dad of a 16-year-old girl used an app on his phone to help track down his daughter as she lay trapped in a car that had come off the road and ended up in a water-filled ditch.
The teen had been in the car with Adam Dudzinski, 17, and his girlfriend Chloe-Ann Naylor, 16, when the Ford Fiesta being driven by Adam left the road near Iwade, Kent, and entered the ditch. The girl who survived the crash told Kent and Medway coroner’s court that she had lain trapped for three hours in the submerged car as her friends died in front of her.
Despite her phone having stopped sending her location, the girl’s dad used Life360, an app that allows users to share real-time location information with friends and family, to find her most recent coordinates.
Just before midnight on January 3, he found the overturned car near Old Ferry Road and called emergency services prompting a mass response involving paramedics, fire crew, police, and the coast guard. Adam and Chloe-Ann were sadly pronounced dead. The surviving girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was taken to hospital and later discharged.
The teens’ families had reported them missing, but nobody knew where they were until the surviving girl’s dad pulled up Life360. She teen told police that Adam had failed to break before a sharp bend in the road, causing the Fiesta to career off the road and flip into the ditch. An inquest heard that there was no evidence he had been speeding, but he was probably driving too fast for the conditions. He did not have a driving licence and was uninsured, the inquest was told.
As she lay trapped in the back seat, the girl said she had been mentally preparing to drown until Chloe-Ann, who was trapped in the front seat, reached back and tapped her leg – giving “her the courage” to release her seatbelt. Chloe-Ann repeatedly attempted to contact emergency services and her mu,, but could not get through.
Chloe-Ann tried to keep Adam’s head above the water, according to the surviving girl. She added that Adam, who worked for Sainsbury’s, repeatedly apologised saying “I am sorry, I am sorry”. The survivor desperately kept trying to call out to her friends, but eventually, they both stopped responding.
Adam had been driving the trio to Chloe’s home in Sittingbourne having spent time together at his house. Officers tried to press charges against his legal guardian for permitting unlicensed and uninsured driving. However, the Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to pursue this.
In the days following Chloe’s and Adam’s deaths, floral tributes were left at the scene, and more than £15,000 was raised in two GoFundMe fundraisers for Chloe and Adam’s families. Click here to view Chloe’s page and here for Adam’s.
The coroner concluded the inquest by saying he “was so sorry” for the families’ loss. Recording accidental death verdicts, he said: “This is a very tragic state of circumstances and I cannot begin to imagine what the three families have been through.”