Reid’s wife, daughter injured in pileup

WASHINGTON – The wife and daughter of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were injured in a serious car wreck Thursday afternoon, when their vehicle was rear-ended by a tractor trailer on a Washington-area interstate, a spokesman said.

Landra Reid and daughter Lana Reid Barringer were taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., with what doctors described as non-life-threatening injuries.

Landra Reid, 69, suffered the more serious injuries, including a broken back, neck and nose. She was being treated in the hospital’s trauma intensive care unit but was not expected to require surgery.

Reid Barringer, 48, suffered a neck injury and facial lacerations. She was was released from the hospital Thursday night.

Reid was told of the accident while participating in a conference call with reporters from rural Nevada, said Jon Summers, a Reid spokesman.

Reid immediately went to the hospital, but later returned to the Capitol to continue negotiations on the health care bill. The senator planned to go back to the hospital Thursday evening, Summers said.

The four-car, chain reaction crash occurred on Interstate 95 in Fairfax County around 1 p.m., according to a news release from the Virginia State Police. Reid Barringer, a mother of three from McClean, Va., was driving a Honda Odyssey van, with her mother riding as a passenger, when the van was rear-ended by the trailer carrying rolls of plastic, police said. The van crashed into a vehicle in front of it. Both members of the Reid family were wearing seat belts, police said.