WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid‘s wife and daughter were hospitalized Thursday – the wife with a broken back and neck – after their minivan was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer truck on an Interstate highway in suburban Virginia, authorities said.
Reid’s wife, Landra, 69, and the couple’s daughter, Lana Barringer, 49, were taken by ambulance to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia. Neither woman’s injuries appeared to be life-threatening, and the daughter was expected to be released from the hospital Thursday night, Reid aides said. Mrs. Reid was listed in serious condition, an aide said, but she was not expected to require surgery.
“Mrs. Reid has a broken nose, broken back and broken neck,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said in a statement. “Lana has a neck injury and facial lacerations. Both Mrs. Reid and Lana are conscious, can feel their extremities, and according to doctors their injuries are non-life-threatening.”
Virginia State Police said Mrs. Reid and her daughter were traveling northbound on I-95 in stop-and-go traffic when their Honda Odyssey was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer loaded with rolls of plastic. The impact forced the Reid family’s minivan to rear-end a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which in turn struck a Chevrolet Cobalt.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, Alan W. Snader, 59, of Ohio, was charged with reckless driving, police said. He was not injured. All involved were wearing seat belts, police said.
Reid, a Democrat, went to the hospital after being notified of the accident and returned to the Congress for a meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on efforts to pass health care legislation. He went back to the hospital Thursday evening.
Reid, 70, met Landra while they were attending Basic High School in Henderson, Nevada. They were married in 1959. Lana was born two years later. The couple also have four sons: Rory, Leif, Josh and Key. Lana Barringer has three children.
