ST. PAUL, Minn. - An Inver Grove Heights family is waiting to learn the cause of a crash that injured three of their family members, one critically.
But wives like Amanda Stombaugh get used to waiting.
Her husband, Luke Stombaugh, is a Staff Sergeant with the Army National Guard. The family was preparing for his third deployment the day he was involved in a serious crash.
That crash left his 3-year-old daughter, Ashlyn, with a cracked jaw, pelvis and a traumatic brain injury. For 11 days, machines at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare kept the 3-year-old alive. She was placed in a medically-induced coma to help alleviate the pain.
"I would much rather take him leaving and being deployed again than facing this situation," Amanda Stombaugh said while sitting a hospital waiting room. "She also had bleeding and swelling of the brain."
The crash happened at Highway 52 and 70th Street in Inver Grove Heights on April 17, when the family says their vehicle was hit by a dump truck. Luke Stombaugh was behind the wheel. The cause of the crash is still under investigation and the family's attorney has advised them not to talk about the crash. Luke says 10 percent of his lung collapsed, he broke his arm and seven ribs but he is not worried about himself, only his little girl.
"People have a lot of patience for the trials that they go through but when those same trials befall on their children they can become pretty impatient," Luke Stombaugh said. "That lack of patience was met with some straight talking doctors who brought me to this place of just knowing that -hey- step one... your family is alive."
Friends of the Stombaugh's have set up a gofundme website to help raise money.
Amanda, who is nearly nine-months pregnant, said Ashlyn was beaming with joy when she learned she'd be a big sister to a little girl. Amanda Stombaugh is due on Mother's Day.
But while the couple waits for Ashlyn to recover, they refuse to let fear of the unknown take over their faith.
"It any little girl can get through this it would be her, she is a fighter," Amanda said. "We are being tested. I feel like, yes, God you were there before, you will be here now."
Amanda has been documenting their journey on a Caring Bridge site.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation and the family has hired an attorney
