Michael "JoJo" Gause tries not to think about the man who witnesses say rammed a truck into his right side and then ran over him in a bar parking lot.

The incident, which shocked the Golden community last fall, happened after Gause, the Rock Rest Lodge bar manager, broke up a drunken brawl which had started inside and spilled out the front door at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 9.

Once in the parking lot, emotions were high when, according to the arrest affidavit, Ruben Marquez scrambled behind the wheel of his cousin's truck and used it as a weapon to crash it into a group of people.

Gause heard the engine before he saw the vehicle bearing down on him, and then started pushing others out of the truck’s deadly path.

One of those people, Adrian Ponce, 26, died and at least four people, including Gause, were rushed to the hospital with severe injuries.

“I was unconscious and woke up in the gravel trying to keep my head together,” said Gause from his home Friday. “There was no doubt in my mind he was trying to kill us.”

Friday, Marquez, 29, was scheduled to enter a plea to 17 charges against him in connection with the late-night hit-and-run, but the arraignment was continued until May as attorneys jockey for position.

The delay was a disappointing setback for Ponce's family. 

“They are frustrated with how long this is taking,” prosecutors told the judge.

Ponce's widow, Ashlie Pena, told The Denver Gazette that she attends every court hearing for the sake of the couple's two small children.

"I want people to know how much Adrian is missed," said Pena, 23. "It's truly the most painful life experience I've ever gone through."

She said that her oldest child, who is four, asks about "his daddy being in heaven and about the bad guy that the cops put in jail for hurting his daddy."

Marquez told Jefferson County Sheriffs deputies who arrested him that early Sunday morning that he was "f*** drunk," according to the affidavit obtained by the Denver Gazette.

Deputies said that while they were booking Marquez, his eyes were glassy, his speech was slurred and he had a hard time keeping his balance.

For Gause, the wheels of justice are spinning more slowly than his own recovery — which has been miraculous according to doctors who predicted that he would be paralyzed for life.

He suffered a broken spine, hip, legs and ribs as well as head trauma in the crash. Just last week he returned to work at the Rock Rest Lodge, walking on his own, although more than two hours standing can get painful and he limps on his right side.

“I look like Darth Vader taking big, long, stupid steps,” he said. 

Marquez is one of two men accused in the crime.

His younger cousin, Ernesto DeJesus Avila, 25, is scheduled to be in court May 1. He pleaded not guilty to being an accessory and is out on bond. Investigators believe that Avila, 25, was a passenger but that the truck belonged to him. 

A GoFundMe set up for Ponce's children has raised more than $4,000. Pena said he was a truck driver who owned a moving company.