Two tiny girls have survived nine hours inside a wrecked family car while their mother lay dead in the driver's seat.
Jacqui Britton, 33, was driving her daughters home from a swimming pool on Monday morning when her car left remote Tathra Road in wet conditions on the outskirts of Bega on the NSW south coast.
The Mitsubishi Outlander smashed into a tree, rolled down an embankment, and came to rest on its roof.
It remained out of sight of passing traffic for around nine hours.
A search party found the wreckage at 7.30pm, about an hour after Ms Britton's husband, Ryan, raised the alarm with police.
The girls, aged two and three months, were dehydrated but relatively unscathed considering the seriousness of the smash.
"They were a little distressed, but not overly," Detective Superintendent Peter O'Brien told reporters.
He said there was "no doubt" their lives had been saved by child restraints.
The toddler has been reunited with her father but the baby has been taken to a Sydney hospital for further tests.
Ms Britton was found wearing her seatbelt, but it's too early to know if she was killed instantly, Det Supt O'Brien said.
Her older sister, Emma, described Jacqui as her best friend, and pledged to look after the family in her absence.
"My heart is broken," she wrote on Facebook.
"I don't know what we're going to do without you."
Another friend said: "Jacqui will be remembered for the laughter and joy she brought to all our lives."
Investigations are ongoing, but he said Ms Britton may have overcorrected or been distracted as she rounded a bend in wet conditions.
"It's a good road but if you're travelling at excessive speed or not travelling to the conditions at the time, the road would be dangerous," he said.
Local councillor Tony Allen said the community would support the devastated family.
"When a tragedy like this happens, the community rallies around as it always has," he told AAP.
Friends have already set up a memorial fund to support Ms Britton's family.
Ms Britton is the 48th person to die on NSW roads in just 41 days of this year.
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