APOPKA -- Maryon Nicole Haught just turned 16 and was thrilled about getting her first vehicle, a sporty Jeep Wrangler with a soft top.

Just issued a drivers license two days earlier, Maryon and four Apopka High School classmates were eager to take the Jeep for a spin. So they skipped school Friday and went four-wheeling around Sorrento in Lake County, near the Orange County line.

Family members said they were driving to a gas station when Maryon lost control of the vehicle on a curve, rolled and crashed. All five students were injured, two of them critically.

"They went on a joyride they'll never forget," said Carl "Buzzy" Weamer, father of 15-year-old Ashley Weamer, who Florida Highway Patrol investigators say was sitting in the back seat without a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle as it flipped.

Carl Weamer said Ashley broke her back in the accident, but was conscious and could feel her legs.

"Doctors are amazed she's not paralyzed," said Weamer, a refrigerator engineer, late Friday at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women, where Ashley was admitted.

Three of the five injured students were flown by helicopter to hospitals.

Monica Faison, 15, a front-seat passenger who troopers say was wearing a seat belt, was also at Arnold Palmer. Monica's family said she suffered severe head injuries and remained in a coma Friday night.

Inside one of the hospital's waiting room hallways, Carl Weamer and Monica's parents, Donnie and Maryanne Faison, held hands with friends, bowed their heads and prayed for the teens' recovery.

"All we can do at this point is pray," Donnie Faison said.

"Doctors don't know how long Monica will be in a coma," Maryanne Faison said. "The next 48 hours will be critical."

Maryon, who officials say also was wearing a seat belt, was in stable condition at Orlando Regional Medical Center, along with Jeremy Berdahl, 17, who was sitting in the back with Ashley and Brandon Seawright, 16. No one in the back was wearing seat belts and all three were ejected, FHP troopers said.

Brandon was in stable condition Friday night at Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares.

Jeremy suffered large gashes to his head and left calf, his mother, Rebecca Berdahl, said. From his hospital bed, he told his mother that Maryon overcorrected her steering at the curve and lost control.

"He said he passed out and didn't wake up until the police and paramedics were there," Rebecca Berdahl, a home care nurse, said at ORMC. "When he came to, one of the girls was screaming and crying. He said the ambulance ride from there to here was pure hell."

Maryon was driving north on Round Lake Road when she lost control of the vehicle on a curve, about 50 feet beyond the Orange County line, just north of Apopka.

The crash occurred shortly after 10 a.m. when the 1998 Jeep Wrangler rolled through a fence, hit a tree and landed on its side off the rural road in eastern Lake County.

The Jeep was traveling at "a high rate of speed," FHP Trooper Kim Miller said. The speed limit on the road is 45 mph.

A witness who was heading south on Round Lake Road told troopers the Jeep cut across the center line, then cut back to the right side of the road, then back across the center line again when it started hydroplaning, rolled through a fence and slammed into a tree.

Before paramedics arrived, a witness cut the seat belts from Maryon and Monica, Miller said.

Family members said the teens typically were good students. They said the teens most likely were so excited about the Jeep that they used poor judgment in skipping school Friday.

"We don't want to place blame," said Maryanne Faison, who added that she will remain at her daughter's hospital bedside until she awakens from her coma. "All the kids who were hurt need support."

By Jim Buynak and Pamela J. Johnson
Orlando Sentinel