A three-year-old girl was found clinging to the body of her mother, who died trying to save the toddler from the rising waters in Beaumont, Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey.
Colette Sulcer, 41, and her daughter were swept away in the waters while trying to get away in a vehicle, the New York Daily News reports. According to police, the woman was driving on a service road when the water began surging in. When she pulled into a parking lot, the car got stuck.
Sulcer was swept into a canal shortly after leaving the vehicle. The girl was found hanging on to her mother’s body. A backpack on the girl helped her float, PEOPLE reports.
“They were in the water for quite some time,” Officer Carol Riley told PEOPLE. “When the baby was found, the baby was clinging to her. The mother did the best she could to keep her child up over the water. The baby also had a backpack that was helping her float on her back and she was holding on to her mom,” Riley said.
When rescuers finally reached the two, Sulcer was unresponsive. The child, who suffered from hypothermia, is now in stable condition.
At least 31 people have died from Hurricane Harvey since the storm first made landfall. Transforming into a tropical storm, Harvey has left the fourth largest city in the nation, Houston, submerged in water and is causing extreme flooding in Louisiana and other parts of Texas.