Hundreds of people farewelled the "heroic" mother Stephanie King, 43, and two of her children: Ella Jane, 11, and seven-year-old Jacob, at Tweed Heads Elevation Church this afternoon. Chloe miraculously escaped the submerged car after it slid off a muddy Tumbulgum road into the Tweed River last Monday, when the region was hit by heavy rains that followed Cyclone Debbie. Chloe Kabealo said she had unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to "go up for air", then "just kept floating up out". “I’m shattered buddy, I’m not holding up,” he told a news reporter at the Tweed Heads fundraiser. "The mother was trying to get one of her children out of the car when she passed away ... she was with the child, holding the child," Superintendent Wayne Starling told reporters last week. “I have no doubt she would still be alive if she wasn’t trying to save her children.” 
 
 Police believe Ms King lost consciousness trying to free two of her three children from the crash. Stephanie King, 43, from Bilambil, died in the accident with two of her children. If you are underwater when you leave the car, push away from it, and if you don't know for sure which way is up, check what direction bubbles are floating in and swim that way. “Nothing that we do could ever replace Chloe’s two siblings, younger brother and sister, but anything we can do to make their life a little bit better we can,” Senior Constable Brad Foster said. Emergency services were called after Chloe escaped from the river and ran to a nearby property to raise the alarm.
– Chloe Kabealo unbuckled her seatbelt after the car her mother was driving slid off a muddy Australia road into a flooded river and tried to "go up for air," then "just kept floating up out." That's how the 8-year-old survived the crash as the car sank, a harrowing experience she relived at a fundraising event this week, the BBC reports—but her mother, 11-year-old sister, and 7-year-old brother all drowned. "I'm not holding up," Chloe's dad, Matt, who was not in the car, said at the event. "I'm just being strong for my daughter." Chloe ran to a nearby farmhouse to get help, but rescuers couldn't save Stephanie King, 43, who was found to have died while trying in vain to save her other two children. "The mother was trying to get one of her children out of the car when she passed away," the local police superintendent told 7 News after the crash three weeks ago. "She was with the child, holding the child. I have no doubt she would still be alive if she wasn't trying to save her children." The fundraising event raised more than $10,000 for the family, news.com.au reports.