A year after crash, Paige Lauten making improvements
An eighth-grade student at Mars Area Middle School who was struck by a car in November 2022 while crossing Route 228 is back in school full time as a freshman in the Mars Area School District.
A year after the accident, Paige Lauten is continuing rehabilitation and making improvements, her parents posted Wednesday, Nov. 29, on Facebook group “Prayers for Paige L.” The post came exactly one year after the crash.
“She has even started to jog more frequently and only has a slight limp in her steps,” wrote her parents, Amy and Burt Lauten. “She is not done by any stretch, but she is a living miracle to be where she is at after only a year.”
Paige, who is a softball player on the River City Venom travel softball team, batted and pitched during two of the team’s fall tournaments, has made the Mars Area Girls Junior Varsity Golf team, and also played a few matches with the varsity team, the update read.
“She is still learning how to get her speed back and run properly, but she isn’t backing down,” her parents wrote. “She never will. And hopes to be fully back in the Spring for Mars softball and then travel softball over the summer.
“The support she has received has been amazing from her friends to classmates to teachers to administrators. We want to make sure they know we appreciate them,” they said.
Following the crash last year, Paige was treated for severe injuries at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. She returned home in February after nearly three months of hospitalization and rehabilitation procedures.