A young vet drowned with her two dogs after becoming stuck in a ford on the way to a 30th birthday celebration, an inquest heard.
Heike Mojay-Sinclare, 29, was heading to a cottage for the weekend celebration with friends but got into difficulty in the ford on the way.
Her inquest yesterday heard she was submerged to her chest within minutes and, despite telling a 999 call operator "I am sinking", she died at the scene.
A pathologist found Mrs Mojay-Sinclare's cause of death to be drowning.
Derby Coroner's Court heard yesterday how Mrs Mojay-Sinclare called emergency services when she couldn't get out of her black Honda Civic in a rural lane in Findern, Derbyshire, in December 2018.
The vet said she was unsure exactly where she was, but believed she was near Ashbourne, so the fire service visited three fords they knew in the area but could not see a car in any of them.
After working out which ford she must be in, a fire station manager who attended the scene said they "decided to commit crews into the water", where the conditions were described as "fast flowing".
The station manager told the hearing: "Crews were up to their shoulders in water and with wading poles searched from bank right to bank left and did not pick up anything."
Police and fire teams searched for hours and, the following morning - when the river level had dropped by approximately half a metre - one member of a water rescue team felt a car underfoot.
The inquest heard how "the car had dropped into a hole" and was found in a "deeper part" of the water.
The station manager added: "The poles would have missed the roof as it had dropped below the river bottom it was traversing."
The court heard how police, residents and the parish council had said a number of others had become stuck at the ford in the past.
The road where Mrs Mojay-Sinclare died is now closed, and the only people who have access are those who own land on the lane, BBC News reports.
Paying tribute, the woman's husband said in a statement: "Her presence felt like a warm glow in our lives and although she is no longer with us, she remains an inspiration for many of us today."
The inquest is due to conclude on Friday.
