Jessica Falkholt and her sister Annabelle fighting for their life after Boxing Day collision in New South Wales that killed their parents

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Two sisters are in hospital fighting for life after a fiery crash on the New South Wales south coast killed their parents and left them critically injured.

One of the siblings, 29-year-old Jessica Falkholt, is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts and has had acting roles in 16 Home and Away episodes and other Australian drama series.

The head-on Boxing Day crash near Ulladulla left three people dead after a four-wheel-drive crossed the road and collided with a car carrying the Falkholt family, police believe.

Witnesses pulled Falkholt and her sister Annabelle, 21, from the wreckage as the vehicles were engulfed in flames but her parents died at the scene along with a 50-year-old man.

Road safety warnings after crashes claim lives across Australia Read more

Annabelle was still fighting for life in Liverpool hospital on Wednesday evening while Jessica was also in a critical condition on Thursday morning in St George hospital. Family members were by their side in hospital.

Born in May 1988, Falkholt and her younger sister were raised in Sydney by their Swedish father and Italian mother.

Falkholt completed a bachelor of arts in media and communication at the University of NSW, where she starred in several theatrical society productions including the musical Cabaret.

After graduating, she found production jobs at the Seven Network and Carnival Films and began building a portfolio of acting work thanks to TV commercials.

In 2012 she won a place at the prestigious acting school NIDA, where she spent three years. Shortly after being accepted at NIDA, Falkholt had her first breaks on TV with bit parts in the Nine Network dramas Tricky Business and Underbelly: Badness.

In recent years Falkholt found fame on the small screen as Hope Morrison in Home and Away, with the long-running TV soap paving the way for her feature film debut in the upcoming supernatural thriller Harmony.

Meanwhile on Thursday morning, a woman was killed in a two-vehicle crash in the NSW south. She was driving a van that collided with a heavy vehicle travelling in the same direction on the Hume Highway at Gunning, police said.

It brings the number of people who’ve died on NSW roads since 15 December to 22. Both NSW and Victorian police said regional areas of each state had been overrepresented in figures. In NSW, 285 people have died on regional roads this year compared with 103 in metropolitan areas.

Police blamed the disparity on poor decisions by drivers, including speeding, drink driving and fatigue. The assistant NSW commissioner, Michael Corboy, said road users needer to take more responsibility.

“Tragically, when a bad decision is made by a driver or rider, it is not only that person that is put at risk, they are usually putting their own passengers and all other road users at risk of getting involved in a fatal crash,” he said in a statement.

“We are past the point of being disappointed, we are now angry that drivers are not listening to our warnings.”