Grieving family urges drivers to take care on roads during festive season

Every night Gold Coast mother Tegan Mitchell has nightmares.Dreams of car crashes and death have haunted her sleep ever since her daughter Olivia Douglas, 8, died on the Bruce Highway.

EVERY night Gold Coast mother Tegan Mitchell has nightmares.

Dreams of car accidents and death have haunted her sleep for the past two months, ever since her daughter Olivia Douglas, 8, was killed on the Bruce Highway, near Childers, while driving to a Bundaberg netball carnival.

Olivia Douglas with her mother Tegan Mitchell.

Tegan is not alone. Her partner Tim Stark and her sisters Liz Mitchell and Taren Turner also wake in the night, unable to get back to sleep.

But even while awake, the friendly close-knit family from Ormeau Hills have struggled to escape their grief.

TRIBUTES FLOW AT BUNDABERG NETBALL TOURNAMENT

Tegan works at Oxenford State School where Olivia attended with her older brother Noah, 11.

Since the crash, Noah has only completed one full week at school.

Neither Tegan nor Tim have been able to return to work, although they would like to next year to help keep Olivia’s memory alive.

“We used to say ‘I love you’ every night. We used to say it religiously, now I look back and she doesn’t say it back anymore, so it’s just so hard,” Tegan said through tears.

“Every day you wake up and hope that it was just a bad dream and it’s not.

“Now it’s the realisation that she’s never coming back. And the realisation before she left that we were very happy. You know happiness until something like this happens and now we know we’ll never know happiness again because she’s never going to be here.”

Tegan’s sister Liz said life’s responsibilities meant she had to go back to work, despite the intense anguish she felt every day.

The cross on the side of the Bruce Highway, near Childers, where Olivia died.

It was in her office where Liz learned of Olivia’s death. Her sister Taren called at 1.45pm on Friday, September 14, to inform her. Liz collapsed in a ball of emotion.

She has since tried rearranging her office so that her surroundings are not a constant reminder of that day, but it has not worked.

Most Fridays, when the clock strikes 1.45pm, she is pulled back in time to that phone call.

Similar to the rest of his relatives, Olivia’s stepfather Tim has tried to keep a positive outlook during the most difficult time of his life.

He holds his head high as he speaks about the little girl who only months earlier had big dreams of becoming a fashion designer who lived in a mansion with a dance studio.

Investigations are continuing into the horror crash that killed Olivia.

Tim said his outlook on driving had completely changed.

“While driving now I see more crosses. I never noticed that many crosses on the highways, on the roads, prior,” he said.

“But I think it’s probably because I’m more cautious and alert now everywhere I drive.”

The whole family feels anger when they see someone acting recklessly on the road.

Taren knows that it was likely one unnecessary risk that led to her daughter’s best friend and cousin being taken from her just months before Christmas.

She hoped that anyone reading The Courier-Mail’s road safety campaign this week would think about their family before they took unnecessary risks this silly season.

“It’s that time of the year where you feel like you don’t want to let people down. But you have to let some stuff go and think about what’s really important,” she said.

“Look at their little faces and ask yourself ‘is what I’m about to do even worth it’,” Tegan said.

“Look at their little faces and ask yourself ‘Is what I’m about to do even worth it?’ ”

CHRISTMAS NEVER THE SAME

HER little face lit up every Christmas.

At the crack of dawn, similar to millions of children around the country, Olivia would wake her parents, excited to see what Santa had left her.

But it was not just Christmas, it was birthdays, and not just her own.

“She’d wake up first thing in the morning and we’d say to her ‘not until the sun comes up. You can’t get out of bed until the sun comes up’. So, as soon as the sun came up, she’d be out of bed and say to us ‘mum, the sun’s up’ and we’d go downstairs,” her mother Tegan Mitchell said.

“Now we’re going to wake up and she’s not going to be the first one.”

Eight-year-old Olivia’s life was tragically cut short on her way to her brother Noah’s netball carnival in Bundaberg on September 14.

In an instant, her family had lost the light of their lives.

“She always gave her best. She tried to make us proud. And she did.”

“We stopped for lunch at Gympie and she said to me ‘oh Mum, can I go with (her friend)’. I had this feeling, part of me was going to say no ... but I thought ‘oh, all right, just go have fun’,” Tegan said.

Investigations are continuing to determine what caused the vehicles to collide.

Olivia’s family have made it their mission to ensure other innocent lives are not lost on Queensland’s roads.

It is the family’s hope that their polite, kind and bubbly “little princess” did not die on the road in vain.

“She was always bright and bubbly,” Tegan smiled.

“She was clumsy, though. Even the morning before we went she fell down the stairs, just carrying her backpack.

“It’s just the kid she was. She always gave her best. She tried to make us proud. And she did.”

Olivia loved netball and was always willing to give Noah unsolicited advice on how to play the game.

She was a valued member of the Coomera Netball Club and would have jumped at the chance to join her brother on the court in Bundaberg, despite being two years too young. She had even packed her shoes and gym gear in her bag in case she got the call up.

“She had some crazy outfits. She wanted to be a fashion designer,” Tegan said.

“She had about 10 occupations,” her stepfather Tim added.

“One of her plans was to build a mansion and live with her friends and her pug dog,” Tegan said.

While Olivia will never get the chance to turn her dreams into reality, her legacy could save the lives of other children on the road.

Originally published as Grieving family urges drivers to take care on roads during festive season