Top US senator's wife, daughter, injured in accident

Mar 12, 2010, 1:04 GMT

Washington - The wife of US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was in serious condition after a car accident Thursday in Virginia that also injured his daughter.

Landra Reid, 69, was in a Washington area hospital with a broken back, broken neck and broken nose, according to a statement from the senator's office. Their daughter, Lana Reid-Barringer, 48, was apparently less seriously hurt.

The two women were conscious in hospital and could 'feel their extremities,' the statement said. Their injuries were said to be non- liffe threatening.

Their car was hit in the rear by a large tractor trailer in Virginia, outside the nation's capital, the statement said. The truck apparently failed to slow down as traffic came to a crawl ahead of it, The Washington Post reported.

Reid, a Democrat, is engaged in a mammoth fight for universal health care against Republican resistance, and has brought the legislation further in the Senate than any of the decades-long attempts to reform the system.

US President Barack Obama wants a final bill by March 18, a date regarded as the last gasp deadline before congressional campaigns begin for November elections. Reid himself faces a serious challenge in his home state Nevada over the health reform issue.