Chris Jasso, 23, was driving in Grand Junction on Oct. 27 with his girlfriend, Emily Glasenapp, 20, in the passenger seat. At approximately 2:35 p.m., he made a left turn at a stop sign on Orchard Avenue. 

Another car coming from the opposite direction of the turn they were making blew through his own stop sign and t-boned Jasso’s car. The hit put the Coal Ridge High School graduates into a clockwise spin and caused them to hit a third car. 

“I was bleeding from both ears,” Jasso said. “I got a fracture in my nasal cavity and it’s so weird, but even though most of my injuries were on the right side of my face, my left eardrum is the one I can’t hear out of.”

He said he doesn’t recall the crash, only backing out of Glasenapp’s driveway, and then coming to after being struck. He had been visiting Glasenapp, as he did every weekend, since she’d become a student at Colorado Mesa University. 

“I got the call at 4 p.m. that Emily was going into emergency surgery,” Justin Glasenapp, Emily’s father, said. “I picked up my ex-wife and we got to Junction. The EMTs rushed (Emily) to the hospital and they removed a subdural hematoma.”

Justin said his daughter will undergo another surgery about a month down the road.

“They need to put a piece of Emily’s skull back in her head where they did the first surgery,” he said. “It’s in a freezer right now. I didn’t know they could do that.”

Erin Greenwald, Emily’s mother, has been in Junction since the collision, staying at the Rose Hill Hospitality House right across the street from St. Mary’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center. 

“I think I just started breathing again two days ago? Three days?” Erin said, expressing her worry. 

Greenwald said her daughter is currently walking and talking on her own. According to doctors, recovery from subdural hematoma injuries is unlikely.   

“As long as she’s alive,” Greenwald said, “we’ll figure everything else out.”

“She’s got a job at the Little Mavericks Learning Center and they said her job is there for her whenever she’s ready,” Greenwald added. Emily is double-majoring in psychology and early childhood development. 

When asked if Emily would be willing to speak about her experience, all three family members said she wasn’t ready.

The communities of New Castle and Glenwood Springs heard about the crash and have so far raised over $50,000 for Emily and Jasso to help pay for hospital bills and other expenses. Greenwald said some of her friends have been bringing her clothes and using Venmo to help her pay for meals. 

The family has found that not only have the New Castle and Glenwood Springs communities been supportive, but so have the Grand Junction and CMU communities. 

“The VP of CMU was waiting for us at the hospital. Our son worked with her and she offered me a room at the Hotel Maverick, but I couldn’t be that far away,” Greenwald said. The Vice President of Student Affairs at CMU is Jody Diers.

Justin said that Diers also offered him a residential assistant dormitory room to stay in at CMU, free of charge, while Emily is in the hospital. 

At the hospital, Justin recalled there were a couple nights when Emily was in a lot of pain and couldn’t sleep. 

“We couldn’t find anyone to help for a while or change her medication. It’s probably because they’re understaffed, but finally, Emily got a good night’s sleep,” he said. “The next day, she got up and started doing rehab.”

Justin and Greenwald also check in on Jasso often. He lives with their son in Silt and works with Justin. 

The Grand Junction Police Department released a statement about the case. 

“Officers with the Grand Junction Police Department responded to a three-vehicle motor vehicle crash in the intersection of N 15^th Street and Orchard Avenue in Grand Junction. A truck traveling westbound on Orchard Avenue ran a stop sign, striking a Honda Civic traveling northbound on N 15^th Street, which struck a Ford Focus as a result of the crash,” GJPD said in the prepared statement. “The driver and passenger of the Honda Civic suffered serious bodily injuries and were transported to the hospital by the Grand Junction Fire Department. The driver and passenger of the Ford Focus were also transported to the hospital with minor injuries. This case is still under investigation and there is no further information available at this time.”

Officer Kevin Bavor, who is investigating this case, was unable to give more information at this time, but he did say there’s a human factor in this incident. 

“I care for these people so when I get involved, I reach out to these people and help them with resources,” Bavor said.

Greenwald said the EMTs who rescued Emily and the police have come to see how Emily’s doing.

The driver accused of the collision, a Fruita resident, didn’t have insurance or a license. 

“The bills are going to be big,” Justin said. “I wanted to raise awareness for these kids.”