The Texas family was on holiday when disaster struck.
A 15-year-old Texas girl was pulled to safety, but her mother and father drowned during a family vacation in the Caribbean, police said.
The bodies of Roy Perez, 38, and Irma Barrera, 33, were plucked from the waters off Bambarra Beach in the Turks and Caicos islands, authorities said.
Their daughter survived, as did the daughter of family friend Dr. Richard Okoloise, who perished along with the couple.
The girls are being cared for by social workers while arrangements are being made by family and friends to fly them home along with the bodies of their parents.
A GoFundMe account has been established to help with those costs.
"We are at a loss for words," reads a post on the fundraising page, "but are rallying together to help."
Police Commissioner Trevor Botting of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force called the incident "a tragic loss of life and obviously all of us are asking every question we can about what went wrong. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone, most especially the children involved."
Barrera's sister took to social media to express her grief. "My heart is BROKEN!!! Life will never be the same," she wrote on Facebook.
"I wish I could just wake up," she later wrote.
The Turks and Caicos Islands, a popular vacation destination, is a British territory of 40 coral islands located southeast of the Bahamas.
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