Fourteen-year-old Lois Pruitt thought she was dreaming when a truck crashed into her bedroom Sunday morning, raining debris onto her while she slept.

The impact broke her arms, her right leg and her collarbone.

“She remembers some,” said her mother, Bonita Stark, who has kept a vigil at her daughter’s bedside since the accident just after 3 a.m. at their home at 10073 U.S. 72, eight miles west of Athens.

“She thought at first she was dreaming,” Stark said by phone Thursday from the pediatric intensive care unit of Huntsville Hospital for Women and Children. “Now and then she asks what happened, and we tell her, and then she asks again. She remembers some things though.”

Since the accident, the Clements High School eighth-grader has had surgery three times to install rods in her broken limbs. She was undergoing an ultrasound Thursday afternoon to look for blood clots.

“She’s pretty sore, but she’s doing real good,” Stark said, “They have her getting up out of the bed and getting in a chair. They may move her into a private room tomorrow. She’s doing better, but she is not eating very well.”

In addition to worrying about her daughter, Stark wonders how the family will cover the medical expenses.

“I will be honest with you, we’re in a financial bind,” she said. “We are on a fixed income.”

Suddenly, Pruitt summons her mother. In the background, you can hear the teenager’s painful moans as the ultrasound procedure hurts her badly bruised and broken body. Her mother politely says she has to go.

It appears Pruitt and her family still have long and painful road ahead.



The accident

The driver of the pickup, William Michael, 18, of Elkmont, fell asleep or lost control of his vehicle, traveled off the road and into Pruitt’s bedroom. The impact knocked her out of bed and flipped her mattress on top of her while it pushed debris against her. The force also pushed debris into her bedroom closet, through a hall closet and into her dad’s office.

The driver and his passenger, Cameron Parker, 18, of Athens were treated at Athens-Limestone Hospital and released. Michael told the family he and his passenger were traveling from Athens to McDonald’s restaurant in Rogersville when he fell asleep.

Neither Stark, 39, her husband, Ronald, 50, nor her brother, James Mansell, 38, was injured.