KEY POINTS:
There's a good chance Hayley Borell and her 16-year-old cousin, Santana, would still be alive today if they had taken their aunt's advice in the early hours of Saturday morning.
But, instead of staying at a party in Northland, the girls decided to drive back to Auckland after
a night of drinking with friends.
Fifteen minutes later, they crashed down a bank. It was 2 1/2 days before anyone found their bodies.
Yesterday, the girls' grieving family spoke to the Herald in the hope other young people would learn from the tragedy.
Suaree Borell said her nieces had driven up to the party on Friday but, by midnight, the older of the two, 23-year-old Hayley, called for help.
She sounded intoxicated and wanted to leave.
"She didn't want to stay there. She wanted to leave but there was nothing we could do."
Fearing the girls had been drinking and also knowing that they were not familiar with Northland's roads, Ms Borell told her niece to stay at the party until morning, when she would drive up to get them.
Despite that warning, the girls - who were "like two peas in a pod" - climbed into Hayley's Mitsubishi Diamante and headed for home. As they came around a bend near Kawakawa, they ploughed off the road and down a bank before hitting a tree. The car came to rest on its roof in a paddock.
On Saturday morning, friends and family tried to reach the girls on their cellphones but neither picked up. Some drove the roads while others contacted the hospital, but there was no sign of them until Monday afternoon when a farmer came across the wreckage.
An autopsy found the girls died from multiple injuries but the time of death is not yet clear.
When family arrived late on Monday night to tell Santana's mother that her daughter was dead, she could not believe it.
"She was my baby," said Alamein Borell, still in shock yesterday.
Ms Borell said she last spoke to her daughter on Friday. She had asked her to stay at home and watch her older sister - who was sick - while she went to do the shopping.
When she returned home that afternoon, Santana was gone.
"On Friday night, I had a bad feeling. On Saturday, my heart sank even lower. By Sunday, I was starting to turn into a wreck," said Ms Borell. Police are still investigating the cause of the crash and are yet to determine who was driving or if the driver was drunk.
However, the Borell family say there are a number of important messages other young people could learn from Hayley and Santana's deaths - the biggest one being not to drink and drive or drive after a long night out.
The girls' bodies will be taken to Tauranga where a tangi will be held this week.
