AN Essex mother has today described the heart-wrenching moment she pulled her young daughter from a sinking car but was unable to save her teenage son.

Rachel Edwards, from Dunmow, wept as she re-lived a car crash near Boston, Lincolnshire, which claimed the life of her 16-year-old son Jack Brennan.

Mrs Edwards, the driver, managed to escape through an open window and swam to the surface after the car hit a pothole and swerved into the dyke.

She told an inquest into Jack’s death how she dived back down to save her two-year-old daughter Isabella, but was unable to free Jack without letting go of the toddler.

Mrs Edwards, speaking at the inquest at Horncastle Registration Office, said: “I know it went into a pothole and the car swung to the right and I don’t know why it went to the left, I don’t know if it went down a bump and then down another pothole.

“I don’t know why it went into the water, I don’t know why.”

She said the car quickly filled with water but she was able to escape through an open window and reach the surface.

She then dived down and released her daughter from her car seat and brought her to the surface.

But she was unable to go back and save her son because there was nowhere to leave her toddler daughter.

She said: “That’s when the rushes pulled us both back down again and when we both came back up again I knew how terrified she was, I wanted to go back in but had nowhere to put her.

“I knew if I balanced her on a wheel she would fall so I could not go back in to get Jack.

“So I just waited and waited.”