Student suffers minor injuries in incident on Blossom Street
Amanda Savage has had better days.
She has stitches and staples in her head, a minor concussion and one eye swollen shut, and she’s walking on crutches because she cannot put weight on her knee.
Still, she thinks she’s doing OK.
The fourth-year public relations student was hit by a car Monday while she was crossing Blossom Street on the way to class.
That was around 3:30 p.m. Monday; Savage was discharged from Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital later that night.
The driver, Randall Latimer, 20, is charged with failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk and lacking proof of insurance.
An incident report wasn’t available by press time, but Savage said she was walking from the parking lot at the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center to the Carolina Coliseum when she was struck by a car turning left onto Blossom from Park Street. The car’s turn signal wasn’t on, she said.
The car, a 1998 Nissan Altima, hit Savage at 15 mph, according to Columbia police spokeswoman Jennifer Timmons.
When it did, Savage said, she hit its windshield, rolled off and landed on the pavement on her head and knee. She tried to stand up, she said, and fell back to the ground.
She was carried off the road by a few passersby and attended to by an EMT who happened to be jogging nearby.
Even so, she was more worried about class.
“I was just like, ‘I have a group project; I have a group project,’” she said.
Once she was in the emergency room, she called her evening class professors to let them know she wouldn’t be in attendance.
She’s taking a break for now, though, missing this week’s classes and spending the weekend in her New Jersey home.
On Monday, though, while she was in the ER, she still refused to take a break — at least until she finished her homework.
“I have all this group work,” Savage said. “I just felt so bad.”