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Teen in critical condition after falling off car
By BABITA PERSAUD, Times Staff Writer
"I wasn't going fast," says Stacie Lott, 17, after her best friend fell off the trunk of the Chevrolet Lumina and hit her head. TAMPA -- The best friends were only clowning around in a school parking lot. Now, one of them has been taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in critical condition. Stacie Lott, 17, went to pick up her best friend, Stephanie Hughes, 18, from night classes at Jefferson High School Thursday at 9 p.m. For "jokes," Hughes wanted to sit on the trunk of the moving car, Lott said. Lott said she told her friend it wasn't safe. "She didn't listen to me." Hughes, who was at Riverview High School last year, plopped on the back of the tan 1990 Chevrolet Lumina, which belongs to Lott's mother. Lott started driving around the high school at 4400 W Cypress Street. She went through the parking lot and around a curve. Then Hughes fell off and her head hit the pavement. Hughes looked like she wasn't breathing. Lott held her and called her name and Hughes started breathing again. Six people gathered around Lott started yelling, she said. One called her a name. "You peeled right out," said another. Lott denies that, saying she was driving under 5 mph. "I wasn't going fast," she said. "I wouldn't do that." The injured teen was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. Hughes hasn't spoken, "but in the emergency room, she was coughing and it sounded like she said my name," Lott said Friday at her South Tampa home. Lott and Hughes met while living in Riverview and were best friends. When Lott's father recently died, Hughes was a shoulder to cry on. "We know everything about each other," said Lott. Recently, Hughes moved in with Lott, who attends private school, and her mother. They lived as a family in a second-floor apartment off Manhattan Avenue. Thursday's accident is under investigation. Tampa Police say Lott did not have permission to drive her mother's car, nor did she have a valid driver's license. "I don't care what happens to me," Lott said. "I just want Stephanie to get better."
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