'They’re in the car. They’re not breathing.' ... Angelina Lopresti's cries to police officers as she is pulled from the Halifax River at Daytona Beach, Forida. Pictures: Daytona Beach Police Department Source: Supplied

Angelina Lopresti, 20, managed to get free of the 2003 red Chrysler PT Cruiser as it sank in Halifax Harbour Marina at Daytona Beach in the US state of Florida, Palm Beach Post reported.

She yelled at the police officers from a seawall to find her children.

“They’re in the car. They’re not breathing,” Lopresti says, her image captured on a policeman’s body cam. “Please, those are my kids, those are my kids”

Four police officers and two firefighters jumped into the Halifix River and dived down into the submerged car. But they were surprised at what they found — there was no one in the vehicle and no one in the water.

In fact, Lopresti’s two children were never in the car.

Police officers found Lopreski “extremely belligerent” and “unable to communicate properly”. Her breath smelled of alcohol and she kept trying to jump back into the river to save her kids. Officers went to her nearby unit and found the two young children asleep and home alone.

Lopresti, who is below Florida’s legal drinking age of 21, then told officers she was “f**king drunk” and that she had left the children at home to go out for a drink.

“She has admitted that she was drinking and I think she even said that she was intoxicated,” said Jimmy Flynt, of Daytona Beach Police Department.

Lopresti was charged with two counts of child neglect and the children put in the care of their grandmother. The Florida Department of Children and Families was also called in to investigate and a blood test was being examined to determine how much alcohol she had drunk.

Lopresti was released from Volusia County Jail on $2000 bail, News Daytona Beach reported. She had been charged with disorderly conduct last April.