A 23-year-old man had just moved to a downtown Denver apartment when he took an Uber to Wash Park for a picnic with his friends.
But before his friends arrived, Ben Varga was in an ambulance, on the way to Denver Health. Denver police said he was shot in the jaw by a stranger, who told officers he had been on a mental health hold less than a year ago.
Since the Feb. 2 shooting, Varga has undergone a handful of surgeries, recovering from fractured vertebrae and a broken jaw while in the hospital.
“I remember everything leading up to the incident,” Varga said. He remembers going to check on a person after they had fallen off their bike. He later learned police said the bike was shot at by the accused shooter, Ryan Egelston.
“I start walking and then all of a sudden is when I get hit, and then my memory kind of just blanks from there,” Varga said.
He graduated from CU Boulder in 2023 and recently moved into a downtown apartment with his triplet sister. The weather was unseasonably warm that day, and he thought it was a great day to be at Wash Park, enjoying the outdoors.
“It was my first time being there as a Denver resident, so I was excited to, you know, get down there and feel a little bit like a local on such a nice sunny Sunday,” he said. “It’s unfortunate what transpired, after what seemed like such a promising kind of safe setting for me.”
For more on this story, and others, visit The Denver Gazette’s news partner, 9News
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