‘It doesn't get worse than a mother’s guilt’: Katrina Brown opens up about the road tragedy that claimed the life of Indie Rose

Katrina Brown was driving with her two young children when the unthinkable happened – claiming the life of her two-year-old and sentencing her to a life of grief and guilt.

Indie Rose Brown, who died in 2015, at Civic Park on her brother's birthday. Picture: Supplied by family

Katrina Brown was driving on the Yorke Peninsula with her two children – two-year-old Indie Rose and five-year-old Taj – when her car left the road, flipped and hit a tree.

While Ms Brown and her son escaped with their lives, little Indie Rose died instantly.

“I will bear mother’s guilt until I meet her again,” Ms Brown said when speaking at an event for World Remembrance Day for Road Traffic Victims hosted by Road Trauma Support Team of South Australia on Sunday.

The Mitsubishi 4WD ute Ms Brown was driving lost traction and veered off an unsealed section of North Coast Rd after a sweeping right-hand bend and hit a tree.

Kat Brown lost her child Indie Rose Brown in a car crash in 2015. Picture: Matt Loxton

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” the mother said of the 2015 crash.

“You don’t have to be doing something wrong on our roads for the most tragic of circumstances to occur.

“I wasn’t speeding, there was no mobile phones, no alcohol, no drugs, nothing, not being inattentive but my environment and my circumstances played a hand.

“My guilt is that of my own motherhood, that I couldn’t protect my daughter not that I was doing something wrong.”

For Ms Brown, who said the police were phenomenal, nothing the police could say was harsher than her own thoughts.

“It doesn't get worse than a mother’s guilt,” she said.

Collection of photos of victims of road crashes including two-year-old Indie Rose Brown who died when her family car came off the road in 2015. Picture: Evangeline Polymeneas

Since the crash that claimed her only daughter Ms Brown has been an advocate for road safety, volunteering with the Road Trauma Support Team of South Australia.

“Support has been my everything,” she told the crowd.

“I’ve spoken to a couple of parents and I think it’s really evident … you lose a sense of your old self, the old Kat is not here today.

“You have to rebuild yourself because you’re a shell and you rebuild yourself to be people who can coexist in a society without your loved one.

“I’m still learning who the new Kat is and that’s okay.”

She encouraged those who have experienced road trauma to reach out to the support team saying it will “make the world of difference”.