4 years ago
277 
A father and his two children aged six and 14 have died after their car skidded off a road and plunged into water in County Donegal.
The children's mother, who was also in the car, managed to get out of the vehicle and call for help after the crash at Three Trees, Quigleys Point.
She was taken to hospital but her six-year-old daughter, 14-year-old son and their father, 49, died at the scene.
A priest who went to comfort the mother described it as a "traumatic" scene.
"It's a terribly tragic incident, it's just beyond words," said Fr John Farren.
He said he prayed with the mother at the scene of the crash for a short time and that she was "hysterical from grief".
"She was completely shocked...totally distressed and I was with her when we prayed with the three deceased," Fr Farren said.
The parish priest said the family are from the Moville area of Donegal, adding the father was a businessman and the mother is a "front line worker".
She was taken to Letterkenny hospital where she is being treated for non-life threatening injuries.
'Lost control'
The crash happened at about 22:20 local time on Thursday.
In a statement, Gardaí (Irish police) said the car had been travelling from the village of Muff in Donegal towards Quigley's Point before the crash.
They said the driver "lost control and the vehicle skidded across the road and down the embankment and plunged into the water".
The mother was sitting in the front passenger seat and both children were in the rear seat of the car.
After she got out of the vehicle and called for help, Gardaí and emergency services arrived at the scene and brought her to hospital.
"It was a completely distressing scene for everybody, including all the ambulance and fire people and the Gardaí, the council workers and the undertakers," Fr Farren said.
He added that despite the mother's grief, she expressed her gratitude to all the people who came to help her family.
"At the end, before she was moved to hospital, she was going round thanking everybody for what they had done, which was an amazing thing in itself that she was thinking of other people."
The bodies of the three family members who died were recovered from the water and taken to the hospital's mortuary where post mortems will take place.
Gardaí have appealed to anyone who saw a Black Mitsubishi ASX in the area after 22:00 local time on Thursday, or who has dash cam footage of the road at the time, to contact them.
The vehicle's registration number is 11 DL 1566.
