Girl pinned in crash still in pain

WOODBRIDGE, Va.—Michaela Andress had to go to Fairfax Inova Hospital again Monday, four days after she was flown there after being struck by a van in Woodbridge.

The 15-year-old girl suffered a broken pelvic bone after the driver of a Chevrolet Astro van backed into her as she was getting out of a medical transport van Thursday in front of an orthodontist’s office on Optiz Boulevard. Michaela was going there to have her braces adjusted. She and her mother often take the medical van to the girl’s appointments because her mother doesn’t drive.

The medical van stopped in the middle of the parking lot that morning, blocking other vehicles that had parked in the lot. One of those blocked was the Astro, and when the driver backed out, she pinned Michaela between both vehicles.

That driver was going to pick up her father at their home in the Southbridge neighborhood to bring him back to a nearby doctor’s office for an appointment. Her cell phone rang as she was backing out, and she looked to see who was calling but didn’t take the call.

Michaela was released from the hospital later that day, and she spent the weekend medicated and feeling little pain, said her mother, Rulla Andress.

But the pain returned, affecting the left side of Michaela’s body.

“I don’t know whether this is an aftershock, or it is her pelvic bone that is hurting,” Andress said Monday, “but we are going back today to have it checked out.”

In terms of the incident itself, Andress said authorities should have punished the Astro driver.

“The other driver didn’t even get a ticket and was using her cell phone while she was driving,” she said.

But that alone is not illegal, and police couldn’t file charges because the accident happened on private property.

The ordeal, however, has convinced Andress to tell other drivers about the distractions that cell phones can cause, she said.

This story was featured on insidenova.com.