A New Ipswich teen who was seriously injured in a crash in Rindge last month died on Saturday.
Nina Colasanto of New Ipswich suffered life-threatening injuries when a Tesla she was a passenger in went off the road, split in two and ignited into a fiery blaze on Dec. 26, her 19th birthday.
“She passed away in surgery” on Saturday, Hope Fellowship pastor Jordan Moody said Sunday morning during a Facebook Live stream. The surgery was one of many she had endured since the December car crash.
“She’s no longer suffering. There’s no more pain. There’s no more tears for her,” Moody said before leading a prayer for Colasanto.
Colasanto was a passenger in a 2017 Tesla Model X that crashed on Perry Road in Rindge on Dec. 26 around 8 p.m. Colasanto was pulled from the wreckage by friends and passersby and taken to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts following the crash.
The driver of the Tesla, Travis Olson, 17, of Rindge, and the second passenger, Chelsea Holombo, 17, of New Ipswich, were taken to the Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough with serious but non-life threatening injuries and were released.
“Nina suffered some of the worst injuries and she’d been in the hospital till yesterday,” Moody said. “She had burns and broken bones and lung problems and so many other things and yet they had been doing multiple surgeries since then and every time there was a surgery it seemed like God would encourage us – with just – it’s going well, she’s doing better, she’s doing great. And then very suddenly, within a 24-hour period really, she started to go down hill with her health.”
Moody said the doctors at UMass were “amazing” trying to figure out what was wrong with her and said the surgery on Saturday was an attempt to improve her condition and figure out what was going that was preventing her from recovering.
“It seemed like God had worked up amazing miracles up until this point and then left us hanging in some ways. And our faith is questioned in many ways,” Moody said. “And yet I’ve been very encouraged to see the amazing response from young people all in our area who knew her very well and her family that this event, and this difficulty, this hardship has not driven people further away, but has driven people closer together.”
Moody held the Facebook Live stream in place of Sunday services due to the snowstorm. Colasanto, “Bean” to her friends, was a member of Hope Fellowship Church in Jaffrey. Moody said she was also part of a church community in South Carolina. Colasanto had many friends and family members in New Ipswich, Rindge, Jaffrey and South Carolina, he said.
Moody said he first learned of her declining condition Saturday morning while attending a parenting conference at Hope Fellowship Church.
“At the parenting conference in the morning I received word that she was having a rough time and she was headed down hill on some things. We prayed for her at the parenting conference Saturday morning, all the parents prayed together. And then some prayed throughout the day. Many people were hoping she would continue to rebound, that she would get better.”
Moody said Colasanto’s mother, Christina Bassett, asked him to express her thanks to the church family for helping them through this and continuing to help them through this difficult time.
“She was full of joy. She had many friends in many places as were are finding out. She affected many lives including me and my wife,” Moody said.
Colasanto graduated from Mascenic High School in 2018.