Emotional farewell for Sydney teen

The parents of Georgina Bartter said their daughter had a lapse in judgment at a Sydney dance festival that would leave many devastated.

Georgina May Bartter

Georgina Bartter was farewelled by hundreds, a week after she collapsed and died at a dance party. (AAP)

Georgina Bartter was a bright, sparkling university student who wasn't known for taking risks.

But at a Sydney dance festival the 19-year-old made a tragic lapse of judgment that would leave her friends and family enmeshed in grief and insurmountable pain.

Georgina was mourned and farewelled by hundreds on Monday, just a little over a week after she collapsed at the Harbourlife dance party.

She died in St Vincent's Hospital later from multiple organ failure.

Her friends had told police she took one and a half pills, and Georgina's family believe she may have suffered an allergic reaction.

On behalf of her grieving parents Simon and Kirsty, Georgina's uncle Simon Braid, said the former Wenona School student had a 0.0001 per cent risk of experiencing a "acute, aggressive and irreversible" allergic reaction.

"The slimmest of slimmest values can create the biggest event of all our lives," he told the Funeral Mass at St Mary's Church in North Sydney.

Mr Braid said a doctor at St Vincent's Hospital explained with sadness that Georgina had only a 10 per cent chance of surviving.

"The doctors working so desperately to save Georgina, we could see the focus in their eyes and the pure anguish and sorrow on their faces," he said.

Mr and Mrs Bartter said Georgina was a vivacious, intelligent and beautiful young woman who had made a split-second lapse in judgment.

"She did not take risks, this was not her character," they said in a statement read by Mr Braid.

"A split-second decision has left us all broken-hearted, devastated and bewildered as to how we will now proceed.

"She did not want this, she did not deserve this."

Friends remembered Georgina, who was studying a businesses degree at the University of Technology Sydney, as a sparkling young woman with an immeasurable love for her family.

The girl from Wagga Wagga moved to Sydney's lower north shore with her family, including her two siblings Sophia and Harry in the early 2000s.

In high school she was a star swimmer, played hockey and water polo.

In earlier years she practised ballet, but later joked with her parents they would have been better off investing in shares.

Her friends said Georgina always looked out for others and during a trip to Europe with friends in July, piggy-backed a friend with a broken ankle.

Best friend Tash Yuncken said she and Georgina always spoke about the future - of graduations, travelling, marriages and babies.

"All these things that seem so certain, all these things that seem so definite," she said.

"But now that you won't be here I need to live it all for you - we all do."

Younger brother Harry remembered the car rides and morning coffees to the skate park with his big sister.

The family had hoped to spend Christmas 2015 in New York, the same year Georgina had planned to move out of home and onto her university campus with friends.

Wenona School students formed a guard of honour as the coffin, topped with white flowers, was carried to the waiting hearse to the sobs of inconsolable family and friends.


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