A Syracuse University freshman is still recovering in the hospital after being hit by a car Wednesday evening.

Jane Khodos, a freshman broadcast journalism and international relations major, was crossing Comstock Avenue against the light at its University Place intersection when she was struck by a car driven by Justin Prince, a senior marketing major traveling south.

‘I’ve been better, but I got the color in my face back,’ Khodos said from her hospital bed Thursday night.

Khodos sustained multiple injuries including a broken femur, a fractured pelvis, a mild concussion, a scalp laceration and a swollen knee. She regained her memory retention early Thursday morning after being left with no memory of Wednesday night’s events.

‘She’s improved a lot since last night,’ said Khodos’s friend Erin Bailey, an undeclared freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences. ‘Last night, she was repeating things a lot, and there was a lot of blood.’

Khodos’s parents, who drove in from Long Island, N.Y., arrived at 4 a.m. Rosanna Grassi, associate dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, visited Khodos on Thursday morning with special news.

‘She told me that I won the election to be a Newhouse representative,’ Khodos said.

Grassi also talked to her about taking a semester off – something Khodos isn’t interested in.

‘It’s my freshman year, you know?’ Khodos said. ‘People want me to go back home, but I want to go back to school as soon as I can.’

Hospital workers are awaiting the results of tests, making it difficult for them to accurately predict a recovery time. But recovery is the only thing on Khodos’s mind as, legally, the case is closed.

Nobody is at fault for the accident because another car obscured the driver’s vision and Khodos crossed on a red light, said Syracuse police Lt. Joe Cecile. New York state law states that pedestrians only have the right-of-way if the driver of a vehicle sees them.

Khodos harbors no bitterness about the accident or toward Prince

‘He was very kind,’ she said. ‘I understand that things happen.’

This is a rare event for SU, and the Syracuse Police Department won’t make any recommendations to the school about making the crosswalk more pedestrian-friendly, according to Cecile.

‘You would think that with all the students who cross that street, that things like this would happen more often,’ Cecile said.

Published on September 11, 2003 at 12:00 pm