Charges: 5 children hurt, one critically, when mother high on meth caused crash north of Twin Cities

Five children under 10 years old were injured, one critically, when a mother high on methamphetamine caused a head-on collision on Friday on a two-lane road north of the Twin Cities, according to charges.

The child most seriously injured, a 4-year-old boy, “sustained a significant brain injury and remains on life support” at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, the charges against his mother read.

Ashlee Rose Klapperick, 36, of Mora, Minn., was charged Tuesday in Chisago County District Court with six counts of criminal vehicular operation in connection with the collision with a minivan on Rush Lake Trail northwest of Rush City near the intersection with Belle Isle Drive.

Klapperick was taken by emergency medical responders to Regions Hospital for treatment of her injuries and then booked into jail Tuesday night. She’s due in court next on April 7. A message was left with her attorney seeking a response to the allegations.

Another of Klapperick’s children in her car, a 3-year-old, survived the crash, as did three children in the other vehicle, ages 9, 4 and 3.

Minnesota court records show that Klapperick has been convicted twice for driving after her license was suspended or revoked, and once for not having vehicle insurance. She had a valid license at the time of the collision, according to the State Department of Public Safety.

Klapperick also was convicted last week in Anoka County District Court for driving the same car with tires so worn that she lost control on Hwy. 65 in Blaine and nearly hit other vehicles on Feb. 6. Tuesday’s charges did not mention whether Klapperick had gotten new tires since that offense.

According to the complaint:

First responders arrived at the scene and found Klapperick’s 4-year-old unconscious and not breathing. They gave the boy more than 10 minutes of chest compressions before he was taken by air ambulance to Gillette Children’s with a light pulse. The Sheriff’s Office said he remained in critical condition Wednesday.

A motorist behind the minivan told deputies that the northbound car crossed the center line, and the minivan’s driver attempted to avoid being hit, but the two vehicles collided head-on.

Klapperick told deputies she was doing “squeezy blinks” — longer blinks than normal — and “when she opened her eyes, the van was right there,” the charges read.

She admitted using meth a couple of days ago and marijuana the day before the crash.

Based on observing Klapperick at the scene, a deputy concluded that her use of meth “would have been more likely within the last 24 hours,” the complaint noted, “and that she was impaired and coming off a high from methamphetamine.”

A search of her car by deputies turned up a glass pipe with residue and tin foil with a crystal-like substance that tested positive for meth.