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Soph. Hit by Car On Mt. Auburn St.

Undergraduate hit on way to class, suffers contusion

CORRECTION APPENDED

Dunster House resident Madeleine I. Shapiro ’09 was hit by a car turning left onto Mount Auburn Street from DeWolfe Street yesterday afternoon.

Shapiro, who is also a Crimson editor, said a silver sedan driving approximately 10 to 15 miles per hour struck her while she crossed Mount Auburn Street on her way to class around 3 p.m.

Shapiro was rushed to Mount Auburn Hospital by paramedics following the accident and released three hours later. She said she suffered a contusion on her left elbow and stiffness in her neck.

“This [driver] wasn’t paying attention or didn’t see me,” Shapiro said. “He hit my left side, and then I fell onto the street.”

Shapiro recalled that the driver, a male “on the younger side,” was driving through a green light at the time of the accident.

“Technically he had the right of way because there was no crosswalk there,” she said.

Shapiro said that a plainclothes Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) officer was present at the time of the accident. He immediately called the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) and Mount Auburn Hospital, she said. Two fire trucks and an ambulance also appeared at the scene.

HUPD spokesman, Steven G. Catalano, referred all questions to CPD because the accident did not occur on Harvard property.

CPD spokesman Frank T. Pasquarello confirmed that there was a motor vehicle accident yesterday at Mount Auburn and DeWolfe streets.

Shapiro’s roommate, Beverly K. Chu ’09, said she walked by the scene of the accident about a minute and a half after Shapiro was struck.

“I turned, and I saw my roommate’s coat,” Chu said. “I saw it was her, and I ran.”

Chu added that when she arrived, Shapiro was already being handled by paramedics.

“She appeared very shaken. She was already in the stretcher and obviously upset,” Chu said.

Shapiro said that she does not know the identity of the man driving the car but that he immediately got out of the car to help and “held an umbrella over me for a while.”

According to Shapiro, she was unsure whether she would press charges against the driver “since it will probably go down as my fault.”

“I think that a crosswalk has needed to be there for a long time,” she said.

—Reed B. Rayman contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Madeline W. Lissner can be reached at mlissner@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION: The Nov. 9 news article "Soph. Hit by Car On Mt. Auburn St." incorrectly stated that a Dunster House resident was hit by a car turning left onto Mount Auburn Street from DeWolfe Street. In fact, the car was turning onto Mount Auburn Street from Bow Street.
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