SEE YOU IN A FEW HOURS ❤️ — THE LAST WORDS CHARLIE SENT HER DAD BEFORE A TRAGIC 24-MINUTE COUNTDOWN
Like every parent of teenagers and young adults, Scott Quinn found himself walking a fine line between supporting his children’s freedom and worrying about their safety.
“You can’t wrap them in cotton wool. You want to bring them up and let them enjoy life,” he tells nine.com.au.
Scott Quinn pictured with his daughter Charlie. Supplied/Scott Quinn
Scott’s daughter, Charlie, was certainly enjoying her life.
“She was doing all the right things, just spreading her wings and about to take off in life,” the New South Wales dad says.
Then, in July 2024, tragedy struck as Charlie, 18, was returning home to Shoalhaven Heads from a weekend in Canberra.
“The kids would all take off in their cars down to Canberra for the weekend for whatever occasion they could get down there for … it was a friend’s 21st, I believe,” he recalls.
Charlie and her boyfriend were heading home on the Sunday. Charlie’s boyfriend was driving, and another couple sat in the back seat.
“I got a message from Charlie, which I look at all the time, that was at 12:46. At 10 past one, they were dead,” Scott says.
The text, which would be the last one she’d ever send him, read, ‘On the road now, see you in a few hours,’ with a love heart.
He responded, ‘Safe drive kiddo, Love ya’s.’
The NSW dad received a text from his daughter just 24 minutes before tragedy struck. Supplied/Scott Quinn
“He fell asleep on a country road they’d driven plenty of times before,” he said.
The car left the road and struck a tree, killing everyone except the driver. At the time, Charlie and her boyfriend had been living with Scott.
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“When he left the house, the only thing I ever said to him was, ‘Look after my baby girl.’”
Scott later found out the driver was driving on a suspended licence and was under the influence of drugs. He was sentenced to six years and seven months in jail, with a non-parole period of four years, and will be eligible for parole in December 2029.
“I watched his family go through court. I watched his mum’s fear of her baby boy being sent to jail. I saw the fear in my ex-partner, Charlie’s mum’s, eyes that justice wouldn’t prevail,” the dad says.
Charlie died aged 18 in a car crash in July 2024. Supplied/Scott Quinn
“When I left the courtroom, I said to my partner, ‘No one wins.’”
Scott remains haunted by that terrible time.
“We were advised not to say goodbye to her, so I never got to say goodbye to my baby girl. I never got a chance to kiss her on the forehead,” he says.
“I’ve got a lot of guilt as a dad. There’s a lot of grief and guilt that’s all intertwined. ‘Could I have done more?’”
Charlie has two brothers, one younger, one older, and both are feeling their own guilt. Her younger brother in particular is struggling: “She was his rock.”
Scott and his family have been supported by the Road Trauma Support Group and the Australian Road Safety Foundation.
“I’ve got a great circle of friends and family that are there for us. My partner’s so strong. It wasn’t just me that got the knock on the door that Sunday night, it was my partner, and my younger son was there,” he says.
‘My daughter was 18 and a very strong young lady.’ Scott Quinn
That night, his “heart shattered into a thousand pieces and died”.
“I feel like my DNA’s changed from that moment, that scream when I realised she’s not coming home. And it’s a small country town down on the South Coast, so it affected everyone,” he says.
“That night, I went into survival mode. From that moment until we got to say goodbye to her was a blur. I just did things. I answered questions, I had to fill in forms, I had to navigate this, I had to take calls to tell the family what was going on.
“You make choices no father should have to make.”
“I do things as if she’s watching, because I want her to sit there and say, ‘That’s my dad.’” Scott Quinn
He’s only visited the accident scene once: “It was just really dark and sad and horrible, and I don’t want to go back there ever again.”
In 2025, 906 people were killed on rural roads, according to the latest figures by the Australian Road Safety Foundation (ARSF). More than two-thirds (69 per cent) of deaths now occur in regional areas.
Twenty-seven per cent of drivers mistakenly believe country roads are safer than metropolitan roads, despite the disproportionate number of lives being lost.
It has now been more than two years since Scott lost his daughter.
“Some days it feels like an eternity, and then others it feels like it was just yesterday,” he says.
He and Charlie’s brothers try and focus on living a life that would make her proud, and visiting places they know she loved.
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“My boys and I now train. My eldest son trained in Jiu-Jitsu for years, and he’s really good at it. He’s got his younger brother and myself into it so we all train in that together now,” Scott says.
“We’ve got these outlets and beautiful people in our lives, and things that we think Charlie would be proud of us for doing. I do things as if she’s watching, because I want her to sit there and say, ‘That’s my dad.’”
Scott decided to go sober instead of giving in to the temptation of drowning his grief in drinking. He is “well over 18 months” sober now.
Russell White, founder of the Australian Road Safety Foundation, shares important message
“It’s been tough, wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but … Charlie has gifted me with life that I would never have looked at the way I do now. I share it with friends,” he says.
“The blues in the skies are a little bit bluer, the greens are a bit greener. Walking with the dog down at the beach, and just feeling the sun on my face. Maybe I just rushed a bit more before. I know how fragile [life] is, now that someone so innocent and beautiful in my life could just be taken like that.”
He also has his memories.
“I wake up every morning, and I’m angry. I have to control that, so I do whatever I have to do, which is usually to have a coffee and cry, because we’d usually talk in the mornings at the kitchen bench … we were that type of family that sat around and had yarns.
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“Some days I’m strong. Other days I’m not, and I have a cry, and I’m cool with that because I loved her so much.”
Scott hopes that by sharing his story, others will remember the importance of safety on our roads and in particular, the safety of others.
By sharing his story, Scott hopes others will remember the importance of road safety. Scott Quinn
“I don’t know what the answers are, but if I can just maybe educate them a bit more. I’m not going to say not to party. I’m not going to say to be a little saint,” he says.
“I’m just saying to make the right decisions when it comes time to make them.”
SOURCE: https://www.nine.com.au/lifestyle/family-relationships/parenting/rural-road-safety-month-scott-charlie-quinn-teen-daughter-20260821-p60qbe.html
