Danielle O'Mahoney is recovering with her family after being struck by a Tiger Transit bus in the early morning of Oct. 18.
O'Mahoney, senior in hotel and restaurant management, was running with a group of more than 100 cadets when she was struck in the head by the driver's side mirror of a transit bus traveling the opposite direction.
Col. Joseph Fetsch, Air Force ROTC commander and professor of aerospace studies, said all the necessary precautions were taken.
"We had people up front with relfective vests, and they go ahead and stop traffic in any intersection that the group is gonna run across," Fetsch said. "Everyone is in reflective gear."
He said there were staff members at the front and back of the three-column group running on the right side of the road. A third staff member followed in a van.
"It was about eight minutes or seven minutes before sunrise," Fetsch said. "It was definitely light out, but the sun wasn't up yet. The run was going to be done before the sun would come up so that nobody would be driving looking into the sun and maybe not see anybody."
Fetsch said the bus did not immediately stop after hitting O'Mahoney.
"One staff member went to run after the bus to get it to stop," Fetsch said. "The bus kept going a bit up the road. They didn't stop until they passed everyone, or even start slowing down."
Capt. Tom Stofer with the Auburn Police said there is an ongoing accident investigation, but the driver of the bus hasn't been charged or cited with anything.
O'Mahoney's fellow cadets responded quickly after the accident.
"Initially they made sure to try to comfort the cadet that got hit," Fetsch said. "One cadet was talking to her calmly and holding his hand on her face where she was cut badly and where the blood was coming from to put pressure on the wound. A staff member was making sure she was in a safe place so that she wouldn't get run over by the next car."
Several attempts to reach multiple cadets who witnessed the incident were unsuccessful.
Fetsch said the subcontractor who operates the Tiger Transit buses is covering O'Mahoney's medical bills, as well as her parents' hotel room.
The group had almost finished the run when she was struck, Fetsch said.
"We ran across campus and ended up on Lem Morrison on the way back to the intermural fields where they started."
Stofer said the run wasn't out of the ordinary.
"That's something that they've been doing over there for years and years," Stofer said.
Fetsch comfirmed this.
"A couple of times a year we run all of our cadets as a wing run," Fetsch said. "It's more of a morale thing."
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