Tia Coleman’s husband, Glenn, and their three children — 1-year-old Arya, Evan, 7, and Reece, 9 — died after the duck boat on Table Rock Lake near Branson capsized in rough weather on Thursday and sank. A total of nine members of her family perished.

“When that water came over the boat I didn’t know what happened,” Coleman, of Indiana, said at a press conference at a hospital on Saturday. “I had my son next to me. But when the water filled up the boat … I couldn’t feel anybody, I couldn’t see. I just remember, ‘I’ve got to get out, I’ve got to get out.'”

Coleman said she hit her head on part of the boat, and the water was ice-cold, and she knew she was near the bottom of the lake. “As I was swimming up I was praying, ‘Lord, please let me get to my babies, I’ve got to get to my babies.”