Southwest Escambia Car Accident Injures 9-Year-Old Girl

On behalf of Terence Gross of Gross & Schuster, P.A. posted in Car Accidents on Friday, August 13, 2010.

A 9-year-old girl was severely injured in a Thursday car accident after the driver of the van she was riding in failed to notice an oncoming car when he was making a left turn. Young Sarah Gismondi was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital, where she is in serious condition.

The car accident occurred shortly after 5:30 p.m. in southwestern Escambia County, just east of the Perdido Bay Golf Course. 19-year-old Christopher Gismondi of Pensacola was driving a 2002 Dodge van eastbound on Doug Ford Drive when he tried to turn left onto Sorrento Road/Highway 292.

Gismondi stopped at the stop sign, then continued into the intersection, where the van was struck by an oncoming car. The collision caused the van to spin out of control and cross to the opposite side of Sorrento, where it came to a stop on the south shoulder of the road.

Gismondi told the Florida Highway Patrol that he thought the other car, a 2000 four-door Jaguar driven by Maria Whitmer of Pensacola, was going to make a right turn at the intersection. He failed to notice when Whitmer continued straight on Sorrento.

Neither driver and none of the other three passengers in the van was injured.

The Florida Highway Patrol has ticketed Gismondi with making an improper left turn in front of opposite traffic.

Related Resource:

“Girl, 9, injured in two-car wreck” (Pensacola News Journal, August 13, 2010)