THE parents of Amy Ransom have told of their grief at their daughter's death in a mountain fall five years after their son was also killed in an accident.

Amy, 17, died halfway through a four-week adventure expedition in Vietnam with girls from Wycombe High School. Her brother Lewis, 16, died when the bike he was riding collided with a car in 1996.

The children's parents, Derek and Claire, of Bryants Bottom Road, Hughenden Valley, spoke to the Free Press on Wednesday.

Derek says it is as if the same film is being shown all over again the phone call bringing news of an accident and the same unbearable wait through the night.

"It was the same wait. You try to go to bed and you try to get up.

"There are the same friends turning up in the same way and you can't believe it is happening twice. The first time I thought it was all wrong. Now I don't think I can stand it."

News of Amy's accident came in a phone call to Derek at work in Harrow where he is departmental manager with Kodak, at 1.30pm on Monday. It was from Charles Rigby, the boss of World Challenge Expeditions, the adventure company organising the trip.

Derek said: "He said there was a problem. She had fallen and it was obviously serious and they were sending in rescue teams."

Derek tried to get in touch with Claire. She was not at work and it was not until 4.30pm that he tracked her down. The traumatised couple and their eldest child Sam, 23, decided they could not sit still and wait for the next phone call. Instead the three drove to the firm's headquarters in Park Royal, west London.

"We wanted to be at the nerve centre," said Derek.

"We sat there. They didn't have any more information. They had to wait for news from the rescue team."

At 3.30am, after reports from local people, the family heard that Amy was definitely not alive.

Derek does not blame anyone, though he says he would rather she had not gone but waited until she had left school and spent her gap year backpacking.

That is not because he was worried about safety, but because he feels Amy should have been concentrating on her exams rather than spending so much time raising the £3,000 necessary to go.

"My view was that she had enough work to do without this." Amy had just taken four AS levels in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Art.

But Amy wanted to do it, and her mother had supported her.

Derek does not want anyone to think he was against the expedition as such. "I don't want to sound negative, I think it was brilliant. "

Amy was a pupil at Hughenden First, Great Kingshill Combined and then Wycombe High schools, where she obtained nine GCSEs. She was considering Bristol and Southampton universities for courses that would have given her a chance to travel.

She had taken up kick boxing and gained an orange belt. She also played the piano and took part in a concert organised by her teacher Cher Mole just before the trip.

Amy had just passed her driving test and she was just learning about the delights of pubs.

Amy's mum Claire said: "Amy Jane was my best friend. We loved to chat about all sort of things; about what was happening in school, about boys. She was mad about boys. After all she was at an all-girls school."

Claire said her daughter was just finding her way into the more grown-up world of pubs and boyfriends and loving every minute of her hectic life.

Their lovely daughter was not always good. A recent night out with friends without getting permission to stay overnight resulted in Amy being 'grounded', said Claire.

But her mother relented in time for her to say goodbye to friends before she went away and to have a special new hairstyle a few days before she left. She spent 12 hours having her dark hair braided. "She felt it would be cooler," added Claire.

Claire, Derek and Sam had to wait 20 hours between learning of the accident and the news that Amy was dead.

The alarm had to be raised via the satellite beacon carried by the leader. His signal went to World Challenge HQ in London and then a message had to be sent to Vietnam and the rescue team raised.

"They had no other way of getting to her apart from walking up the mountain track," said Derek.

"They had the right technology with them, but nothing would have made any difference to Amy's chances of survival.

"These children are making relationships and learning lots of things. Some of them will get into difficulties."

But Derek adds sadly: "You don't expect this to happen."