The grieving sister of a young musician who died in a horror car crash earlier this year has told of the harrowing moment she heard about the accident on Facebook.
Isobel Vlahiotis lost her ‘incredible’ and selfless sister, Odetta Maxwell, 25, in a horror accident along Port Wakefield Highway, just north of Adelaide, on January 31, 2023.
It is understood Ms Maxwell had attempted to change lanes but overcorrected and slid off the road, her car ending up in the undergrowth of the highway’s central reservation.
She managed to climb out of the car before emergency services arrived, but suffered serious internal injuries in hospital that killed her.
Ms Vlahiotis has since urged motorists to be more careful on the roads.
Odetta Maxwell (left) died in a horror car crash north of Adelaide on January 31. Her sister Isobel Vlahiotis (right) first heard about the crash on Facebook
It is believed Ms Maxwell (pictured with her car) was attempting to change lanes when she overcorrected and crashed, causing fatal internal injuries
Ms Vlahiotis was casually scrolling through her phone that day when she saw that a car similar to her sister’s, a silver Mazda, had been involved in a serious accident.
She had sent a screenshot of a news article about the accident to her family, but admits she thought: ‘Thousands of people are driving on that road, that can’t be true’.
Soon after, Ms. Vlahiotis called her mother, but she was met with more confusion than answers.
“When I asked if everyone was there, she said yes – she must have thought I meant Dad,” she said 7news.com.au.
“I heard the TV on in the background and thought it was Odetta and Dad talking.”
Ms. Vlahiotis recalled feeling immediate relief and believing her sister, whom she considered more like twins with only 18 months between them, was safe.
However, that comfort was taken away an hour later when she discovered ten missed calls from her mother and another call from her husband.
Ms Vlahiotis has spent time since Ms Maxwell’s crash (above) encouraging drivers to be more careful behind the wheel
He told her that Mrs. Maxwell had been in an accident and was in hospital.
Before the crash, Ms. Maxwell was a talented emerging musician who became popular on triple j Unearthed under the stage name Pink Wasabi.
She had also recently enrolled in college to study neuroscience and philosophy and was planning to move in with her girlfriend.
When Ms Vlahiotis arrived at the hospital and was waiting for her parents, doctors frantically tried to resuscitate Ms Maxwell.
There, Ms. Vlahiotis heard from a news bulletin on the emergency room TV how serious her sister’s crash was.
“Before I was told what had happened, it was showing on TV that the girl who crashed was in critical condition and fighting for life,” she said.
“I know the hospital staff didn’t want to break news without mom or dad there.”
Both of Mrs. Maxwell’s parents (above) had suffered lifelong disabilities in separate car accidents before she and her sister were born; Ms. Maxwell took on the role of their caregiver when she was not studying at university or making music under her stage name Pink Wasabi
In a cruel twist for the family, both their parents were involved in serious car accidents before Ms Maxwell and Ms Vlahiotis were born.
Their mother was hit by a car while sitting in a crosswalk at the age of eight, and their father was involved in a single-vehicle accident after suffering a mental illness in 1991.
Both parents had other disabilities due to the incidents and Ms Maxwell had worked as a part-time carer.
When Ms. Vlahiotis was finally able to go in to visit her sister in intensive care who was on a ventilator, she was shocked to see that her sister did not look fatally injured.
‘She was just there, no scratches except one on her arm. She looked good,” she said.
Ms Vlahiotis (pictured right, on her wedding day to Ms Maxwell, left) recalled seeing her sister in the ICU on a ventilator. She was shocked that the 25-year-old looked ‘fine’ despite her catastrophic internal injuries
After months of trying to come to terms with the death of her little sister, Ms. Vlahiotis wants to borrow some of Ms. Maxwell’s passion and determination to keep others safe on the road.
“If there’s any way I can keep her alive, it’s by keeping other people alive,” she said.
‘Make the right choice when you’re behind the wheel.
“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your family. If you don’t want to do it for your family, do it for Odetta.’