After a car crash Sunday that left one roommate dead and another in serious condition, UW-Eau Claire sophomore Nicole Schroht and junior Kristina Dietz are adjusting to having their four-person Chancellor’s apartment to themselves.

“It’s lonely, it’s empty, it’s eerie,” Schroht said.

While returning to campus Sunday afternoon from her hometown of Shawano, Eau Claire, junior Tanya Gartner, 21, lost control of her car after hitting a patch of ice and collided with an oncoming car on Highway 29 in the town of Morris, according to a police report.

The Jaws of Life were used to extract Gartner, along with her close friend, Eau Claire junior Jennifer Ehlinger, who was a passenger in the car.

Gartner later died at Theda Clark Hospital in Neenah, according to the report. Her father Fred said she died due to massive head injuries sustained in the accident.

Ehlinger remains hospitalized at St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay. At the time of printing, St. Vincent Nursing Supervisor Sue Robertson listed her condition as “serious.”

“Jenny is stable. She’s going to make it,” Ehlinger’s mother Cheryl said.

Ehlinger suffered a broken leg and arm, fractured pelvis, a lung contusion and broken ribs in the crash, Cheryl said.

On Monday she underwent a three-hour surgery to add a rod in her leg and pins in her arm.

Cheryl said she expects her daughter will return to Eau Claire by the fall.

Ehlinger, however, will return without her roommate of nearly three years.

Gartner and Ehlinger had been rooming together since freshman year – they were like sisters, Cheryl said.

Gartner and Ehlinger were “pretty much best friends,” Dietz said.

Also very close to Gartner was junior Robin Enderlein. Both were English education majors and she said, “(Gartner) was one of the most incredibly loving people I’ve ever known in my life.”

Enderlein described Gartner as having a great soul used to find a common ground with children, who she loved to work among.

Resource Teacher for the Gifted and Talented Department, Dan Ogan of South Middle School said Gartner recently began tutoring gifted seventh graders. The idea, he said, was to match the best English education majors with the best English students.

“She was all fired up and excited,” he said.

After 31 years of teaching, Ogan said he has learned to identify the most “dynamic and hardworking” upcoming teachers, and Gartner fit into this class.

Gartner “took charge of her own learning and growth,” English professor Scott Oates said.

She picked a place to be in life – a goal – and pulled herself up to it, he said.

Gartner was passionate about working with people, he said.

And people were passionate about her. Oates cancelled a class Friday in response to nearly half of his class leaving campus to attend Gartner’s funeral.

Fred Gartner said he remembers the little things best about his daughter.

She loved the color purple, music and animals, especially dolphins, he said.

The family chose to donate Gartner’s organs, he said.

“It makes me feel good,” he said, “(that) she helped somebody else.”

Oates said the English Education department is still in shock over the loss of their classmate.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” junior Joy Hudacek said. “She was going to be a really good teacher. It’s hard to think of about her in the past tense. It’s hard to accept she’s gone.”

Gartner’s funeral will be held at 1:30 p.m. Friday at First Presbyterian Church in Shawano.