TODAY should have been a day of special occasions for Glen and Jaze Pink, a day celebrating their daughter Marina’s 18th birthday surrounded by all seven of their children.
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But instead the Brisbane family came together to remember and honour.
Marina and her two siblings, Jack, 19, and Destiny, 15, were killed instantly while travelling in two of the three vehicles involved in a collision at Boggabilla on Monday morning.
Jack, who was driving a pantech truck and towing a food cart, crashed head-on with a fuel tanker on the Newell Highway.
NSW Police believe the tanker then rolled onto a Land Cruiser 4WD driven by Marina, with Destiny as a passenger.
Their father Glen was travelling in the vehicle ahead of them and heard of the accident over a two-way radio.
The Pink family run Pink Event Catering and travel the Queensland show circuit providing food services.
Young Marina even had her own coffee shop alongside the family’s Pink’s Food Factory stall. She was born while Glen and Jaze were working at the Gladstone show.
Glen and the three children were travelling home to Brisbane after attending a show in Dubbo when the accident occurred. Two of the couple’s older children were in Bundaberg preparing for an event there.
The Pink family are renowned on the show circuit with the teenager’s grandfather, outgoing Showmens Guild of Australasia president and third-generation showman, George Pink.
Mr Pink struggled to speak over the phone today but said the family wanted to try and acknowledge and celebrate not only Marina on her birthday but Jack and Destiny too.
“All the kids were wonderful and they have left a huge hole in this family and it can’t be replaced,” he said.
“There have been a few happy birthdays sung but obviously also for Destiny and Jack and just trying to remember them separately and together which isn’t easy.
“It’s very raw, very new.”
He said it was a traumatic experience for the entire family but especially the teenagers’ father, Glen, who had been traveling with them.
“(They were) extremely polite (children) and working with their Dad it was a very tight knit family,” he said.
“Glen would have been out on the road again and they won’t be with him. It will be very difficult for him.”
Not only has the family received support from their community in the Showmens Guild of Australasia but also Jaze’s family from New Zealand.
George Pink said Jaze was doing it tough but she was remembering and writing on social media in respect of her children.
"They touched everyone they met, they loved hard, they thought of others, they made (a) difference," she wrote on Facebook.
"Marina my darling as bossy as hell! Party with your brother and sister drink with the gods poppa max and prickly pink and all of our loves."
A spokesman from the Showmens Guild of Australasia yesterday told the Queensland Country Life it was the saddest day in their history.
The Queensland Chamber of Agricultural Societies Inc (QCAS) are amongst the many groups and people to share their condolences with the family.
QCAS General Manager Karen Wolf said they would stand with the Showmens Guild of Australasia and would offer their support where possible.
“It’s a shocking event and it has just affected the show movement very deeply in Queensland,” she said.
“We of course convey our condolences on behalf of all of our members to the Pink family and the Showmens Guild members themselves. We understand the Guild is rightfully shocked and deeply troubled.
“It is difficult to understand how dreadful it is to lose so many (children) so young from one family.”
A Go Fund Me page has already raised more than $75,000 for the family.
To make a donation click HERE