Toddlers survive ‘days’ in car wreck that killed their mother

Two young brothers found at the scene of a car crash that killed their mother could have been there for up to three days, detectives have said.

On Monday morning, police responded to a 911 call from a member of the public who spotted an unaccompanied toddler walking along a remote stretch of state highway near Camden, Arkansas.

The boy was “covered in cuts and scrapes and appeared to have been outside for an extended period”, says CNN.

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“You could tell he was extremely traumatised,” said Ouachita County detective Nathan Greeley

Authorities shared a photo of the rescued boy on Facebook, through which they were able to identify him as three-year-old Kylen Holliman.

Worried relatives told police that Kylen, his mother Lisa and his one-year-old brother had not been seen since Thursday.

Officers combed the area, and discovered an overturned car out of sight in a deep ravine around 250 metres away from where Kylen had been found.

Lying near the wreckage was the body of 25-year-old Lisa Holliman, who appeared to have been ejected from the vehicle in the crash, local news station KARK reports.

In the back of the vehicle, alive and still strapped into his car seat, was the missing one-year-old.

Despite his ordeal, the baby was said to be “alert and responsive” when emergency services reached him, CNN reports.

The siblings’ grandfather, James Holliman, described how Kylen “managed to get out of his car seat, through the sunroof then up a small hill filled with bushes” to escape from the wreckage.

“When he climbed out of that car, seeing his mother dead like that like she was, he tried to wake his mom up,” he told KARK. The toddler eventually made his way to the roadside, where he was spotted by a member of the public.

Both brothers were taken to hospital, where they were treated for dehydration and minor injuries and later released into the care of relatives.

Greeley said the boys’ survival after the crash, which police believe occurred on Friday or Saturday, was “nothing short of a miracle”.