Twin 4-year-olds freed themselves from a car crash that killed their father and climbed to safety, police say
by Kelly McLaughlin
- On Friday night, 47-year-old Corey Simmons of Langley, Washington, was driving with his 4-year-old twin daughters when their car careened down an embankment on Washington’s Whidbey Island.
- Simmons was not wearing a seatbelt and died in the crash, but his daughters were left uninjured.
- The girls freed themselves from their car seats and climbed up a 200-foot embankment in the dark looking for help, family members told KING5 News.
- It was then that a good Samaritan saw the girls, helped them get into her own car, and called 911.
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Twin 4-year-old girls in Washington freed themselves from their car seats and climbed out of an embankment after being involved in a car crash that killed their father.
Authorities told KING5 News that on Friday night, 47-year-old Corey Simmons of Langley, Washington, was driving with his twin daughters when their car careened down an embankment on Washington’s Whidbey Island.
Simmons was not wearing a seatbelt and died in the crash, Washington State Police Trooper Heather Axtman told KING5.
The girls were in the backseat of the car when the crash happened. The girls, who had minor injuries, freed themselves from their car seats, and climbed up a 200-foot embankment in the dark looking for help, family members told KING5.
It was then that a good Samaritan saw the girls, helped them get in her car, and called 911.
“She knew something was tragic,” Atman told the Seattle Times. “The girls got in the car and said: ‘My daddy, my daddy, my daddy.'”
Officials from the State Patrol are investigating what happened in the crash.
“We simply don’t know,” Axtman told the Seattle Times. “It’s one of the truly saddest stories, but so heroic at the exact same time. Had those little girls not had the sense of awareness they showed, we would have a missing family. They overcame every typical little kid fear. The woods, and the dark.”
Simmons’ girlfriend and the twins’ mother, Esther Crider told the Seattle Times that Simmons was a “caring” dad with a “boisterous, loud voice.”
She said Simmons had Friday off work and had stopped at a convenience store for snacks after picking his daughters up from daycare.
“Corey drove up and down that road for five years,” Crider said. “I don’t know what happened.”
The family set up a GoFundMe page after the crash to raise funds for funeral expenses and to help Crider care for the twins. So far, they’ve raised more than $6,000.
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