The little girls knew something was wrong with their dad and went for help.
Twin 4-year-old girls were able to wriggle out of their car seats, climb out a broken rear window and go get help after a deadly car crash that plunged their family's vehicle down an embankment, authorities said.
The brave little girls had tried to talk to their father, who was in the driver's seat, after they slid off a rural two-lane road in Washington in pitch blackness. When he didn't answer, they knew they were in trouble.
"These little girls climbed out of the vehicle to go get help," Washington State Police spokeswoman Heater Axtman told InsideEdition.com Monday. "The bravery that shows me is incredible."
The accident occurred Friday at about 6 p.m. on Whidbey Island, about two hours north of Seattle. Corey Simmons, 47, was driving home with his twin daughters when he veered off the dark road and slid down a steep embankment. Simmons, who was not wearing a seat belt, was later pronounced dead at the scene, Axtman said.
"The twins stuck together. They were brave for each other and they were brave for their dad," Axtman said. Somehow, they were able to climb the rugged terrain and reach the road, where a passing motorist just happened to see them as they crested the embankment.
The good Samaritan put the children in her car to warm up and asked what happened. The little girls kept repeating "My daddy, my daddy," Axtman said. The woman called 911 and tried to find the father, but she couldn't see the crashed vehicle from the road.
"She's a stranger and she's trying to comfort them as best she can," Axtman said. The woman asked not to be identified. "I talked to her," Axtman said. "She showed the good that we actually have in this world."
Authorities who responded to the woman's call eventually found Simmons' 2017 Nissan Sentra about 100 feet down.
"It's never a good time for a tragedy like this to happen," Axtman said. "But now, so close to the holidays ... it's just extremely terrible."
The girls' mother, Esther Crider, is now a single mother, Axtman said. A GoFundMe account has been established help with burial costs.
The accident is under investigation, Axtman said, and it's unclear what caused Simmons to crash.
"I just can't get over the bravery these little girls exhibited," she said.
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