On the afternoon of Thursday 8 October 2026, 36-year-old Lisa was driving a blue Subaru Tribeca along McDonald Road in Tinana South, near Maryborough on Queensland’s Fraser Coast, heading into Maryborough to collect other children from school. The vehicle left the roadway, crashed through a fence and plunged into a dam on a neighbouring property. The car was not discovered for several hours. The property owner found it submerged upside down and entered the water in an attempt to rescue the occupants.
Emergency services, including police and fire crews, responded after Steven James, Lisa’s partner and the father of ten-year-old Arliyah James, became concerned when the school reported that the children had not been collected. Both Lisa and Arliyah were pulled from the vehicle but could not be revived and were declared ᴅᴇᴀᴅ at the scene. Arliyah’s mother, Sarah Gorman, described her daughter as her “wild child,” the one who kept her on her toes and made all their hearts burst with love. In a public tribute she wrote: “Love you all the way below the fishes and all the way up, up above with the clouds where you now are our lil angel. My heart will forever be missing its beat my baby.
I love you so much, I’m so sorry my baby.” Relatives and friends remembered Arliyah as beautiful, happy, always-smiling, full of life and energy, a down-to-earth little girl whose smile would never be forgotten. Lisa was recalled as a loving partner, cherished mother, daughter, sister and friend. Steven James launched a GoFundMe in their memory, stating that in an instant a loving partner and a beautiful young life full of promise were gone far too soon; the appeal noted the impact on Lisa’s surviving children Rubie, Aaden, Tyler and Cooper.
A separate fundraiser organised by Arliyah’s great-aunt and great-uncle sought to give her a loving send-off surrounded by her favourite things. Both campaigns attracted thousands of dollars within days as the Tinana and Maryborough communities rallied. The 𝔠r𝘢sh occurred during what should have been an ordinary school-run afternoon, only a short distance from where the journey began, and the delayed discovery added to the shock. Queensland authorities treated the incident as a fatal traffic 𝔠r𝘢sh under investigation. The combination of the mother’s raw apology and declaration of permanent loss, the descriptions of Arliyah’s personality, the dual fundraising efforts and the rural setting where a vehicle simply left the road and entered water has made the story travel widely across Australian and international outlets.
