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Community Mourns Mother's Death In Isanti Crash

ISANTI, Minn. (WCCO) -- A mother is dead and two of her children badly hurt after a 16-year old ran a stop sign in Isanti on Sunday evening.

Friends and neighbors of 30-year-old Christin Birkholz, the woman killed in the crash, say she will be remembered most as a loving mother. Her three children, 1-year-old Mason, 4-year-old Bailey and 10-year-old Logan, were all in the vehicle at the time of the crash. Mason and Logan are both in serious condition at Hennepin County Medical Center while Bailey was treated and released from the hospital.

Several of the moms who live in her neighborhood have kids with similar ages. They say they're missing one of the most prized members of their support group.

"She was a great mom, very concerned about her kids -- and their safety," friend Heidi Streiff said.

One of Christin's other friends, Megan Bergman, was also on the county roads Sunday night, just minutes before the crash.

"We had actually been detoured from that accident. We were on our way home from Chicago and we saw the helicopter land and we just thought, 'Something's not good there,'" Bergman said.

But she never imagined what happened next.

"We saw the two police officers come down the street and slow down by their house," Bergman said.

Bergman said her head immediately went back to last thing she heard from Birkholz.

"She said ... 'We'll see you when you get home, have a safe trip.' And just to think back to that moment and then know that now I'm not going to see her," Berman said.

Bergman's child is best friends with 4-year-old Bailey. The support group for Christin, or "Chrissy" as they call her, said they will work to bring normalcy to her children's lives. They say, in turn, they've learned life's great lesson the hard way.

"Any day could be your last day and you just got to make sure you tell the people you love that you love them every day, and just the little things that we worry about really don't matter," Streiff said.

Click here to ready the original report on the accident.

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