Girl, 16, tells how she watched friends die in front of her as they lay trapped upside-down in car

A girl has told how she watched her friends die in front of her as they lay trapped upside-down in a car in a water-filled ditch before her father used Live 360 to rescue her.

Adam Dudzinski, 17, and his girlfriend Chloe-Ann Naylor, 16, drowned after he lost control of a Ford Fiesta in Iwade, near Sittingbourne, Kent at around 8.30pm on January 3. 

But another girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, survived after being found by her father who was using the Live 360 mobile app, which allows people to track each other's locations, Kent and Medway Coroner's Court heard.

The passenger, 16, spent three hours in the vehicle after it left Old Ferry Road and landed upside down in a drainage ditch full of water.

Although the app had stopped sending information, the father rushed to where its final co-ordinates were registered and discovered the partly submerged vehicle just before midnight. 

The survivor told Coroner Ian Potter how she watched her friends die while stranded in the submerged car.

In her police statement, she said Adam, who did not have a licence and was uninsured, had been driving fast but was not speeding and although he had tried to slow down, he did not brake in time for the sharp bend. 

This caused the vehicle to veer off the road, flip upside down and land in the ditch, she explained. 

Upside down and trapped, Chloe tried to call the emergency services and her mother, but could not get through. 

The survivor added that she was preparing to drown and described how Chloe tapping her on the leg 'gave her courage' to undo her seatbelt.

While trapped, Adam had said, 'I am sorry, I am so sorry', as Chloe tried to keep his head above the water.

The schoolgirl kept shouting her friend's name, but after a time, Chloe stopped answering.

Sainsbury's employee Adam was driving the two girls to Chloe's home in Sittingbourne after the group spent time in his house nearby when the crash happened.

The worried families reported the teenagers missing, but there were no clues as to where they might be.

After the father of the second girl raised the alarm, paramedics, fire crews, police and the coastguard rushed to the scene.

Chloe and Adam had died by the time they arrived after drowning in the water.

The other girl, who had been sitting in the back seat, was taken to hospital and later discharged.

Investigators found no evidence Adam had been speeding at the time, but he was likely to have been going too fast for the conditions.

Officers tried to press charges against his legal guardian for permitting unlicensed and uninsured driving.

But the Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence to pursue this.

In the days following Chloe's and Adam's deaths, floral tributes were left at the scene and more than £15,000 was raised for Chloe and Adam's families.

The coroner concluded the inquest by saying he 'was so sorry' for the families' loss.

Recording accidental death verdicts, he said: 'This is a very tragic state of circumstances and I cannot begin to imagine what the three families have been through.'