Doug Gin was about to retire after nearly 30 years as a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder when on July 5 he died in a car crash that left his wife in critical condition.

Now, their two children are managing their mother’s recovery, the family’s finances and their father’s funeral.

“It’s been overwhelming and very sad,” daughter Amanda Gin said.

Doug Gin and his wife, Jeanne Loi, were involved in a high-speed head-on collision involving five vehicles on U.S. 287 just south of Oxford Road. Earlier that day, they had dropped off Amanda Gin in Denver and then stopped for groceries in Broomfield. They were driving back to their home in Longmont when the crash happened.

“I’m feeling like I’m still processing what happened,” Doug Gin’s sister-in-law Mary Gin said.

The family is waiting for the police to share more details on the crash.

Amanda Gin said her mother is stable but still in critical condition. Loi has injuries to her brain, lungs, digestive tract, and bone fractures throughout her body.

“It’s a long road,” Amanda Gin said. “Weeks to months they tell me.”

The family created a GoFundMe page after people expressed the desire to help financially. The page has raised more than $37,000 as of Thursday that will be used to pay for Loi’s medical bills and Doug Gin’s funeral.

Rich Noble and Doug Gin, both chemistry professors at CU Boulder, worked together for roughly 20 years on various research projects and co-advising students.

“I was sitting here with my wife and we were watching some kind of TV and the email came and I read it and I read it again and it didn’t sink in,” Noble said. “It’s such a shock.”

Noble said Doug Gin was a great mentor who was dedicated to his students while also being highly successful and well-regarded in the research community.

“I consider him a real close friend,” Noble said. “We had lots of technical discussions but also personal discussions and we helped each other out over the course of 20 years.”

Amanda Gin deferred starting graduate school for a year, and her older brother will take a temporary leave. Both are pursuing doctoral degrees in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I just want to be here and spend time with my family and my mom as much as possible, and it’s more important than any of that school stuff right now,” she said.

Amanda Gin said her dad loved animals, science fiction books and Star Trek.

“He’s very into science and chemistry and research and teaching,” she said. “But on the home side of things, he likes to fix problems around the house and do a lot of home renovations. He really likes cars, especially red cars. He was a good guy.”

Mary Gin said they were private people who were devoted to those around them.

“They’re both wicked smart in their own ways,” Mary Gin said. “Doug was so full of life I can just hear him talking and laughing.”

Amanda Gin said there’s been a lot of support from the GoFundMe page. She’s seen donations from people she hasn’t seen in years or names she doesn’t know, and when she messages them she hears stories about how they know her parents.

“It’s been really reassuring that my parents have really good lives, really great friends and a lot of people that care about them,” she said.

Because Doug Gin was planning to retire, he had a retirement party planned at CU Boulder that’s now going to be a celebration of life in August.

“Since this happened, there’s been a real outpouring of love and support,” Noble said. “It shows how he touched people’s lives.”

For more information, visit gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-doug-gin-aid-for-jeannes-healing.