A 12-year-old girl who survived the Dreamworld ride disaster is in need of counselling and blames herself for her mother’s death, a family friend says.

Ebony and her mother Kate Goodchild were on a Thunder River Rapids raft on Tuesday afternoon when it flipped backwards.

Ms Goodchild, her brother Luke Dorsett, and his boyfriend Roozbeh Araghi were three of the four people who died in the accident.

They had been visiting Queensland from Canberra for a family wedding.

Sandra Brookfield, a childhood friend of Ms Goodchild and Mr Dorsett’s mother Kim, said 12-year-old Ebony felt responsible after asking her parents to take her to Dreamworld on Tuesday.

“Ebony is going to need so much guidance and counselling,” Ms Brookfield told ABC Gold and Tweed Coast.

“She is blaming herself for this. She was the one who wanted to go to Dreamworld. [But] they had all decided to do Dreamworld. Whether it was was fate, but her life was saved.”

Ms Goodchild’s husband David Turner was cradling their eight-month-old daughter Evie and saw the tragedy unfold.

Ms Brookfield said the family was using ms Godchild’s favourite perfume to help calm Evie.

“She was very clingy to her mother. Her mother was the only one that could settle her,” Ms Brookfield told AAP.

“The smell of her mother is not even there so they spray her mother’s perfume around the cradle for a bit of comfort.”

A fundraising page has been set up by Ms Brookfield for Ms Goodchild’s and Mr Dorsett’s families, for counselling, education, childcare costs and housing.

“Dave said last night ‘how am I going to keep my home?'” Ms Brookfield said.

“Now he is going to be a single father with two little girls.”

The fundraising page had a goal of $20,000 but had raised more than $35,000 within hours of being set up.

– with ABC