Bellingham man has ‘long recovery’ ahead after car hits deer

A Bellingham man needed brain surgery and remained in critical condition at a Seattle hospital this week after his car hit a deer in Grays Harbor County, according to his family.

Shea Austin Baumgart, 30, a commercial salmon and crab fisherman, was driving a Chevrolet Impala to Westport around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9, en route to a job preparing crab pots for the coming season.

Three miles northeast of his destination, the southbound Impala hit a deer on State Route 105, according to the Washington State Patrol. The deer crashed into the compartment of the car. Baumgart was knocked unconscious but the Impala kept going. Two passengers — coworkers Jacob J. Jackson, 21, and Jacob Richard Justiniano, 20 — kept the car under control until it came to a stop about a mile down the road.

Jackson and Justiniano weren’t hurt. Baumgart was rushed to an Aberdeen hospital, then moved to an Olympia trauma center. Ultimately he was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he remained in critical but stable condition Friday.

His family has been waiting for him to wake up. Baumgart suffered a broken vertebra and a punctured lung, and he has undergone surgery for clotting and head injuries, said his sister-in-law, Shayda Sorenson.

Other than opening an eye and some limb movement, Sorenson said, he has been unresponsive. Pictures of him in a hospital bed show him unconscious, on a breathing machine, hooked up to an array of tubes, with a large white brace on his neck and sternum.

“It’s going to be a long recovery,” Sorenson said.

Baumgart — a father of a son, 7, and three daughters, ages 2, 4 and 4 months — grew up in Bellingham and attended Squalicum High School. He met his wife of six years, Brittney, at church. She has been with him at the Seattle hospital, while Sorenson, a California resident, flew here to look after their kids in Bellingham.

Since his youth Baumgart has fished with his father in Bristol Bay, and he fishes on his own 28-foot boat, Quick Pitch, locally. His family does not know when he’ll be able to work again.

This week a gofundme page, “Please help Shea and his family,” had raised more than $5,000 within hours of being posted.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 6:10 PM with the headline "Bellingham man has ‘long recovery’ ahead after car hits deer."