Kayla Holland, Logan, fights for safer storm drains after death of daughter Mia Holland-McCormack

A Logan mum whose daughter drowned in a storm drain has spoken out about her devastation at not being able to watch her little girl grow up. She is now fighting to ensure no other family ever suffers the same loss.

Mia Holland-McCormack with mum Kayla Holland. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

A Logan mum is campaigning for safer storm drain designs after the tragic drowning death of her daughter on Boxing Day last year.

Mia Holland-McCormack was just nine when she escaped from her father’s Rochedale South home and drowned in a storm drain at Bill Kohlman Park.

Her mother Kayla Holland said Mia was severely autistic and loved water.

She said one side of the drain, near a children’s playground, had a grate on it but the section where Mia got in was unprotected.

“She saw all this water, jumped in, thought this was great,” Ms Holland said.

Mia Holland-McCormack died on Boxing Day, 2023. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

The water was moving so fast Mia became caught in the drain and could not pull herself out.

Ms Holland said her daughter’s body was later found “quite a fair way away” after being pulled by the water through the drain.

“By that point she had passed,” she said.

Ms Holland had dropped Mia and her brother Eli, 12, at their father’s house earlier that morning so they could spend time with him over the Christmas holiday period.

“About six o’clock that night, Ryan (Mia’s father) called me very stressed saying she had escaped,” she said.

After a frantic search involving police and firefighters, Ms Holland received the devastating news that her daughter had been found dead.

“And then everything’s a bit of a blur,” she said.

Mia’s mum Kayla Holland said Mia always loved water. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

She barely had time to process the news before it was everywhere.

“Her face, my face, Ryan’s face were everywhere … I got off social media for about two weeks,” she said of the media reporting at the time.

Adding to their troubles, Ms Holland said they had difficulty explaining Mia’s death to her brother Eli because of his autism.

“The first couple of weeks were really tough for him because he just didn’t understand where she was, what was happening,” she said.

Mia with her brother Eli. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

Ms Holland said they were able to give Mia the best funeral possible after the community raised more than $30,000 for the family on GoFundMe.

But she had since struggled to return to the house where she had lived with Mia and also had battled to return to work as a teacher’s aide.

“There’s a lot of kids there that have traits that remind me of her, or they look like her, or they sound like her,” she said.

She said the family still felt Mia’s loss every day, often through unexpected little reminders.

“The other day I had eggs for breakfast and I had a bit of a meltdown because Mia loved breaking eggs,” she said.

“If she saw an egg, she would pick it up and smash it on the floor.

“I’ve never been able to have eggs on the bench because she would come and grab them.”

Mia was severely autistic. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

After feeling powerless because she was unable to prevent her daughter’s death, Ms Holland was now focused on making sure the same thing never happened to another family.

To her knowledge, nothing has been done to better protect the drain at Bill Kohlman Park where Mia entered.

Ms Holland has started a change.org petition to the Logan City Council to ensure the storm drains in the area were better protected.

“I couldn’t do anything at the time, so this is what I can do for her now – and for any other people that might end up going through this,” Ms Holland said.

Mia pictured with mum Kayla Holland. Picture: Supplied/Kayla Holland

“She was only nine,” Ms Holland said.

“I’m going to miss seeing the kind of person that she was going to be and what she was going to look like, what would she do and all the fun times, because of lack of protective measures that already exist on one side of the drain.”

“It’s just been taken away because, I’m guessing, it was just too hard to put a grate over a drain.”

Logan City Council declined to comment.

Originally published as Kayla Holland, Logan, fights for safer storm drains after death of daughter Mia Holland-McCormack