Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife underwent surgery Friday after breaking her neck and back in a traffic accident that also injured the senator's daughter, a spokesman said.
Initially surgery was not thought to be necessary for Landra Reid's injuries from the crash Thursday. The doctor caring for Mrs. Reid was to discuss her condition at a news conference Friday.
She had been listed in serious condition earlier Friday and Reid was at her side at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., according to Jon Summers, spokesman for the senator.
A tractor-trailer rear-ended the minivan carrying Mrs. Reid, 69, and the couple's daughter, Lana Barringer, 49, on an interstate in the Washington suburbs, officials said.
Barringer was released from the hospital Thursday night, hospital spokesman Tony Raker said.
"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."
Manley said Mrs. Reid could feel her extremities.
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, D-Nev., went to the hospital after being notified of the accident and returned to Capitol Hill for a meeting on efforts to pass health care legislation. He went back to the hospital Thursday evening, left at midnight so his wife could rest, and returned Friday morning, Summers said.
Reid, 70, met Landra while they were attending Basic High School in Henderson, Nev. They were married in 1959.
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