Stay With Us: The Jas Alexander Story
Photo courtesy of Grand View Women’s Wrestling.
Grand View wrestler Jasmine Alexander after her accident in October 2019.
by Derek Levendusky, AWW staff writer
GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY, IOWA – It was a day that would change the course of her life. In the early morning hours of October 19, 2019, Grand View college wrestler Jasmine “Jas” Alexander was on her way to serve as a volunteer at a local wrestling tournament outside of Des Moines, Iowa. It was dark and raining hard, the roads slick and wet. Asleep in the passenger seat, Alexander woke to the violence of metal smashing and glass shattering, her body being whipped around inside a car that was flipping off the road into a field.
Most of her memories of the experience are mere images as she slipped in and out of consciousness. She saw her best friend Justin Portillo, the driver on that tragic morning, standing nearby and weeping, his head in his hands. She remembers him holding her hand, telling her not to move. Everything was going to be ok, he said.
The jaws of life were used to pry open the mangled car.
Emergency workers.
“Stay with us!” one encouraged.
The sound of a helicopter.
A flight to downtown Des Moine.
The paramedics didn’t think she would make it. Her injuries were severe and grotesque. She had deep lacerations on her face, a hole between her eyes where the top of her nose caved in, exposing her brain. Multiple bones were broken in her facial structure, including both cheek bones. Her teeth were chipped; both of her eye sockets ruptured, severing both tear ducts.
Grand View head coach, Angelo Crinzi, tells of the moment he heard the news. “One police officer called me to the scene and they didn’t think she was gonna make it to the hospital,” he said.
The hours and days that followed included numerous tests, procedures, and surgeries, sewing her face back together, treating her wounds, replacing fractured and shattered bone structures with metal plates.
Friends and family prayed. The wrestling community prayed. Friends & family came to her side. Even before her first surgery, almost her entire team and coaching staff came to see her. They held her hand; they encouraged and comforted her. Eventually the men’s team came as well.
Miraculously, she not only escaped with her life, but she had no brain injury. The Grand View senior began long hard road to recovery. Her 2020 graduation imminent before the accident, now she was in the Class of 2021.
Gifts, cards, and love began to flow in from everywhere. Portillo, his twin brother Josh, a friend/teammate named Alaura Couch, and Alexander’s boyfriend Sean, didn’t leave her side. “Sean drove two hours from his college the minute he heard about the accident and stayed with me every day,” recounts Alexander, “missing school for weeks just to be by my side through this.”
Her mother flew in from California the day after the accident and stayed with her for almost six weeks.
“I was unable to do everyday things by myself,” said Alexander, “like walking—my eyes were swollen shut—going to the bathroom, dressing myself, etcetera. Without the strong support system that I had, I honestly don’t know where I’d be now.”
MOVING FORWARD
“Now I’m doing well,” explains Alexander, “but still slowly recovering. I have some issues with my vision that we’re trying to figure out. I also still have a couple more surgeries to go through before I’m completely on the road to recovery.”
Originally from Hemet, California, the 116-pound GV Viking wrestler competed all four years at San Jacinto High School. She was one of the only two girls in the history of her high school to make it to girls’ states. The other was her close friend, also on the team, a relationship that dates back to her childhood and a deep connection she had with her family, King University All-American Alyssa Aceval.
Alexander has struggled to stay on the mat in college because of injuries, but considers her greatest achievement at the college level winning a community service award. “I think it’s so important to give back to your community and the people who support you,” she explains, “and I really put a lot of effort into children and supporting their dreams.”
Alexander has had success on the mats, too, becoming a national qualifier for Waldorf before she transferred to Grand View, where she won the Waldorf Open in 2017, got two wins at the Missouri Valley Open in 2018, an event known as the toughest regular season tournament in women’s college wrestling, and placed 5th in 2019 at the EZ Flex Invitational.
Doctors are not hopeful that she’ll ever be able to wrestle again. “I’m itching to get back on the mats,” says Alexander, “but my doctor told me…one good blow to the face will ruin me and will lead me to be right back where I started. I hope that I can defy these odds.”
The first days after the accident were marked by denial and coming to terms with it and her new normal. “For two weeks following the accident I refused to believe [it happened],” she remembers. “I kept asking my boyfriend daily if I had a bad dream, and if my mom was really here. Every day, he assured me it did in fact happen, but the reality of it is that it didn’t hit me until my eyes finally opened up and I saw the extent of the damage on my face.”
Alexander is no stranger to working through serious injuries, as she’s had to do it several times before in her wrestling career, including a fractured spine and slipped disc followed by surgery, and then a concussion that involved a 6-month recovery. If her competitive career is over, she’ll be around the mats one way or another. “If I can’t defy the odds and can no longer wrestle, I hope to be part of the wrestling community in a bigger way, possibly coaching,” says the optimistic young woman. “I want others to have the opportunity to be able to love the sport the way that I do.”
Through the whole ordeal, she’s found strength in her friends and family, but none more than her mother, starting on Day 1. “When they called her to tell her about the accident, they asked if she’d like to speak with my while I was conscious,” remembers Alexander.
The paramedics, who thought this might be her last conversation with her mother, put the phone to Alexander’s ear and the badly injured young woman told her mother that she was sorry, starting to cry. “Not that I had done anything wrong,” explains Alexander of the moment, “but because I knew she was scared. I’ve never really seen or heard my mom cry except for when someone has passed away. So to hear her cry over the phone…made me realize that I needed to be strong for her and believe that I could get through anything.”
Her teammates also gave her strength, and she became an inspiration to many of them. When “Jas” was finally able to return to the wrestling room, one of her teammate’s, Emma Cochran, was very eager to show her something. “She showed me that she’d been working on a move I showed her the day before my accident,” told Alexander. Portillo, the driver of the car on that dark morning, is aiming for a national title to honor his wounded friend. Other teammates have set goals to honor Alexander and have expressed that they are inspired by her suffering and courage.
”She comes in and sits in on practices,” said Coach Crinzi of his only senior, as she transferred from Waldorf to be part of the start-up program. “We include her. She’s a part of this program…we’re grateful she’s alive.”
All of this has been healing for her and made her even more brave. The song “Goodbye” by the recording artist Ezri became a theme for her recovery. Alexander says, “When I was first in the accident, the part that says ‘for all my people still here with me, I promise imma make it for y’all’ made me think that with all the people who came to visit me I can really get through this. The second part that says ‘all the rough times, tough times, I remember getting through those’—makes me feel like even through all this hardship I will make it through, and then it’ll only be a memory.”
The wrestling community at large has also been supportive. Athletes, coaches, and teams have donated to her GoFundMe page, and she’s been overwhelmed with friends and strangers reaching out to ask how they might help. Even the Dan Gable museum did an auction on a singlet to help raise money for her recovery. “I think the attention and responses I’ve received from the wrestling community are absolutely amazing,” tells the grateful grappler. “At least every week I get a message from people I’ve never even met before asking how I’m doing…I love it. That’s what the wrestling community should be all about!”
Alexander still has a long road ahead. She’ll have ongoing medical and dental procedures as, “I still have things that need to be fixed in order to function properly in my everyday life.”
“Stay with us,” the medic said on the day of the accident. By the grace of God, the love of friends and family, and the skillful care of the medical community, she did. Jas is still with us.
We haven’t heard the last of her in the wrestling community. Her story may have entered a new chapter, but there’s so many more pages to write.
Former president Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
If we’re using a wrestling analogy, Alexander is winning one of the toughest matches of her life.
Donate to Jas Alexander’s ongoing recovery and medical needs on her GoFundMe page.
Alexander on the long road to recovery.