News 12 at 11 o'clock -- Wednesday, March 3, 2011

EVANS, GA. -- Five Greenbrier High School girls are recovering after a golf cart accident sends them to the hospital.

It happened in a neighborhood near Greenbrier High School Tuesday before the girls soccer game.

"You scared me don't do it again," a friend told ailing Leesa Guarnotta Wednesday.

Guarnotta laid bruised and battered on her couch all day Wednesday. She was one of five soccer teammates who crashed when a golf cart lost control coming down a hill on Newland Circle.

"All of a sudden the golf cart went right, then left and then it flipped," Guarnotta said.

It threw three of the girls including Leesa off the back of the cart.

"Everybody was just all crying and just looking at their own wounds and nobody was really sure what had happened," she said.

Reports say all five ended up at the hospital. The most serious injuries parents say are a broken pelvis and a fractured skull.

"The one that's still in ICU...I'm extremely worried for her," Leesa said while lying with a neck brace on her couch. "I really would love to have a camera on her so I could see what's going on with her like 24/7."

Leesa suffered a broken thumb and lies in pain, but doctors originally thought she had a broken neck, which terrified her mother Sharon.

"That's just like the most terrifying thing you know," Sharon said. "You think paralysis."

"I feel extremely luck," Leesa said. "That's the only thing I was thinking of on the way home. Thank God I'm alive."

When the speed limit is less than 35 mph the Columbia County Sheriff's Office says it is legal to drive a golf cart on the road. To do that though, you have to have a drivers license or a learners permit with someone 21 or older in the cart. In this case, they say that didn't happen which could mean charges for the 15-year-old driver.

"I don't think these girls were taking chances or doing anything wrong," Sharon said. "They were just going for a little golf cart ride before the game."

But that little ride turned into a big scare, something Sharon doesn't want to happen again.

"I'd be fine if she never rode one again," she said about her daughter.

The Columbia County Sheriff's Office hasn't decided on charges yet, but they said the 15-year-old driver could face driving without a license charges.

Leesa did say even though she is in pain she's happy to know her soccer team still won their game without them.