By Dorothy Whittington
The nation was saddened when 12-year-old Brandi Allen died in the Queensland floods. Here her mum Deanna talks about losing her little girl.
When police knocked on her door on a wet Easter Monday afternoon, Deanna Allen immediately thought something had happened to her 17-year-old son, James. It never crossed her mind that her daughter Brandi, just 12, would be in trouble.
Brandi Elizabeth, Deanna’s little “drama queen”, who considered herself almost an adult after starting high school this year, was missing. She was seen being swept away in the floodwaters of the Caboolture River, just north of Brisbane.
“It was about 2.50pm when the police came. I just went to pieces,” Dee says. “Call it a mother’s instinct, but even though she was only reported missing, I knew she was gone.”
As police and SES volunteers searched the murky brown torrent, Deanna and Brandi’s father, Greg, kept a vigil on the banks of the swollen river.
“I needed her found and returned to me,” Deanna says, recalling those excruciating hours of waiting. “I just sat and waited — I couldn’t leave.”
Almost exactly 48 hours after her disappearance, with the flood levels dropping by up to 10m, Brandi’s body was discovered by a canoeist about 15km downstream from where she had last been seen swimming with a friend.
Brandi had spent the first days of the school holidays at the beach with family, but missing her friends at home had returned to Caboolture on Easter Sunday.
“I saw her briefly on Easter Monday morning,” says Dee, her eyes focused on a picture of Brandi that she refuses to put down. “She’d just woken up and had bed-hair. She was still beautiful though.”
For the full story, see this week’s Woman’s Day — on sale May 4, 2009.
The Allen family would like to thank Hannah’s Foundation for its support. Dedicated to toddler Hannah Plint, who drowned in a family pool in 2007, the charity’s website is at www.hannahsfoundation.org.au
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