Pleasant Grove High School student dies 10 days after head-on crash, principal says
A high school junior has died of injuries sustained last month in a head-on collision in east Sacramento County, Elk Grove Unified School District officials announced Monday, marking the second fatality in the vehicle crash.
Gina Shen Brinsmead was one of five students in a car heading toward Pleasant Grove High School the morning of Jan. 22 when it collided head-on with another vehicle on Eagles Nest Road southeast of Rancho Cordova, near Jackson Road, according to a letter to parents by the school’s principal, Taigan Keplinger, and confirmed by an Elk Grove Unified School District spokesperson.
Brinsmead, an 11th grader at the high school, died at a hospital Saturday with family at her side, according to Keplinger’s letter. She was remembered as a fun-loving yearbook staffer, photographer and a student of theater and guitar.
“Gina experienced many beautiful friendships during her time in our school,” Keplinger wrote. “Gina is kind, generous, creative, talented, and full of compassion. She is loved by many.”
The driver and only occupant of the other vehicle, identified by the coroner as 29-year-old Antoinette Windom of Sacramento, also died in the collision, as previously reported by The Sacramento Bee.
According to the principal’s letter, four other Pleasant Grove students were with Brinsmead in the vehicle, all heading to the school that morning. Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District spokesman Capt. Chris Vestal said two of the five occupants in that vehicle sustained serious injuries, in addition to the other vehicle’s single fatality.
Elk Grove Unified School District spokeswoman Xanthi Pinkerton in a statement said that information regarding a memorial for Brinsmead will be shared once it is publicly available.
The Pleasant Grove High campus will offer additional emotional support services and grief counseling on its campus all week, according to the principal’s letter.
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