‘We hope they did not die in vain’: Families of Dreamworld victims tell coroner of heartbreak

The loved ones of the victims of the 2016 Dreamworld ride tragedy have delivered heartbreaking statements about their loss and the kids left behind without mums.

The partners, parents, siblings and children of the four people killed on Dreamworld’s Thunder River Rapids ride have told a court for the first time of the shattering impact of their deaths.

Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi were all killed when a water pump on the ride malfunctioned in October 2016, flinging them from a raft into a mechanised conveyor.

General view of the entrance to the Dreamworld theme park on the Gold Coast. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP

Ms Goodchild’s then 12-year-old daughter and Ms Low’s 10-year-old son survived the terror.

Isla Low was just six when her mother was killed while on the ride with her brother, Kieran, on a family day out at the theme park.

“I miss her hugs and the cakes she used to make,” the now nine-year-old said in a statement read out by her father, Mathew Low, in the Brisbane Magistrates Court today.

Mr Low said their hearts ache “daily” at the memory of Ms Low, who lived in Sydney but was born in New Zealand. He said she “deserved the world”.

“She had the heart of a tiger,” he said of his wife.

“She had mastered the art of unconditional love.”

Ms Low’s mother, Donna Cooke, said in a statement that she had written a note to the young ride operator.

“I know my daughter wouldn’t want her to carry the burden,” she said.

Coroner James McDougall today handed down his 300 pages of findings following an inquest into the four deaths, saying the tragedy clearly demonstrated a “systematic failure” by the theme park “in relation to all aspects of safety”.

Cindy Low, 42. Picture: Facebook

Kate Goodchild, 32.

Kim Dorsett said no parent should ever bury a child but she buried three of them – her daughter Kate, son Luke and his partner Roozi.

The trio, holidaying from Canberra, had visited Dreamworld three times in one week.

“My huge regret is that the day she needed me most, I wasn’t there,” Ms Dorsett said of her daughter, wiping tears from her face.

“The easier part was burying them, the harrowing part is living without them.”

She told the court Ms Goodchild was the “best mummy to her two girls” but her youngest, Evie, will never remember her.

“She will get to know her mum, Luke and Roozi through stories we share, pictures and trips to heaven, which is what she calls the cemetery,” Ms Dorsett said.

She said her son was always the first to arrive at a party and the last to leave.

“Almost like he knew his life would be short,” she said.

Ms Dorsett said the family now celebrates birthdays at the cemetery

“We live with broken souls and let’s not forget the four beautiful children who will now grow up without their mothers,” she said.

Roozi Araghi, 38.

Luke Dorsett, 35.

The father of the Canberra siblings, Shayne Goodchild, said not a moment passes “when we don’t wish they hadn’t set foot on that ride”.

“Such tragedies do not happen by accident, they do not happen out of nowhere,” he said.

“We hope they did not die in vain.”

He said his daughter was taken “so dramatically, so publicly, and we’ll never be the same again.”

Police have recommended no criminal charges against Dreamworld staff over the fatal accident, but the coroner could still suggest prosecutions or substantial fines for the company and its executives.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has promised the state government will seriously consider the coroner’s findings.

“Anything that is recommended today we owe it to those families to make sure it is implemented,” she told Nine’s Today program.

With AAP

Dormant carriages from the Thunder River Rapids ride at Dreamworld. Picture: Jono Searle