Two friends drown inside car after it flipped into ditch and filled with water

Their friend kicked his way out of a window and desperately tried to save the pair.

A student has recalled how he desperately tried to save two friends who who drowned inside a car which flipped into a water filled ditch.

Ryan Brett, 21, tried to help Beth Eves and Harry Skilton undo their seatbelts after the upside down Mini Cooper started filling up with water.

An inquest heard how he kicked his way out of a window but was unable to save the others, who later died in hospital.

Beth, 21, was 15 times the legal drink drive limit and had cocaine in her system before the crash at 3.30am on May 18.

All three friends had been staying with friends at Herons Park caravan site in Lydd, Kent when they went out for a drive.

The car went through a junction, hit a post and hurtled across a field before becoming submerged in the ditch.

After giving evidence at the inquest yesterday, carpentry student Mr Brett said he called emergency services as soon as he realised he was unable to save the pair.

They were recovered by a rescue team but died later that morning in hospital.

It is not known exactly how fast the car was travelling at the time, KentlLive reports.

But PC Waghorn told the inquest at Archbishop’s Palace, that only the tyres, undercarriage and exhaust could be seen above the water.

He said it was hard to tell exactly how fast the car was travelling at the time.

Investigators could not find out whether Harry or Beth were driving but assistant coroner Katrina Hepburn accepted Brett’s account that Beth was behind the wheel.

Ms Hepburn concluded the pair died due to a road traffic collision.

Harry, from Barming, was a horticultural student at Hadlow College while Beth, from Maidstone was a creative designer for Google.

In a statement read at the inquest on behalf of Beth’s family, her aunt Pauline Wincott said: ‘It is sad that whatever makes a headline today is not what we want our baby girl to be remembered for.

‘No-one wants to be remembered for how they left this earth and out of the 21 years of her life, this is such a small snapshot and does not depict the person that she truly was.

‘Those that were privileged to have her in their lives will understand how extremely devastating this tragedy is.

‘Bethany was a talented, beautiful young woman with a great future ahead of her at Google.’

She said she ‘touched the soul of everyone she met’ and that the family’s lives would ‘never, ever, be the same’.