Josefina Pena has limited mobility after she was hit by a car during the riots following the Women’s NCAA Championship on Route 1.

For many students who rushed to Route 1 after the women’s basketball team won the NCAA national championship last month, news footage of the mayhem brings a kind of smug pride – a reaffirmation of Maryland fans’ passion flaunted in the face of authority.

For sophomore Josefina Pena, the images cause a pain deeper than the pangs in her legs as the bones slowly knit themselves back together.

Crossing Route 1 from its east side on her way back to her Calvert Hall dorm room that night, an unidentified black car emerged from the throng of students and struck Pena, knocking her to the pavement and crushing both of her femurs.

Having just switched from a wheelchair to crutches after a lengthy hospital stay, Pena still faces up to six months of physical therapy before she can walk normally and says images of the post-game celebrations only remind her of the ordeal.

“I was a little irritated at the fact that nobody from the university came to see me,” Pena said. “All I saw on the news was people celebrating. I was there to support the school, and when that happened to me I didn’t get any support from the university.”

After dropping the three of her six classes she couldn’t complete online, Pena, a letters and sciences major, said she will try to recoup some of her tuition money from the university before applying to the business school in the fall. She also said she plans to ask for financial assistance to live on the campus this summer so she can try to make up for lost time.

Pena watched the game that night on mute so she could study with friends at the same time. When the team won, her friends left for Route 1, but Pena hesitated.

“At first I wasn’t going to, but then they left, and I decided to go with them,” she said. “We were just running around Route 1 saying, ‘We No. 1, We No. 1.'”

“It came out of nowhere because there were a lot of people in the street,” Pena said of the car that emerged from the crowd.

At first, the pain didn’t register. Then she tried to stand and began to scream.

“When I tried to get up I thought I had died,” she said. “I saw this light, and this girl I didn’t even know was shaking me and telling me to wake up and then to calm down.”

The first week in the hospital was the worst, she said, because she was moved frequently from bed to bed. Doctors operated the day after the accident and placed metal pins in her legs to stabilize the bones.

At her first physical therapy session, she struggled to move from the side of the bed. The pain was so bad her heart rate shot to 156 beats per minute.

Over the next few weeks, she had to learn to stand again, “like a baby,” she said.

In media footage of the accident, the car doesn’t appear to slow before hitting Pena and continuing south on Route 1. Police said they are investigating it as a hit-and-run.

Pena said she hasn’t heard any news in nearly three weeks, but seeing the footage of the accident, which was replayed for a week on local news channels, was a shaking experience.

“I started crying because it brought me back to that night,” she said. “I kept looking at it over and over again, but then I just stopped and left because I didn’t want to see it any more.”

Pena has since returned home, where her mother has taken time off work to care for her full time. Friends stop by with words of support. Pena has been bending her knees, walking up stairs with her crutches to strengthen the bones and concentrating on regaining balance.

A mix-up with her pain medication landed her in the emergency room Monday when the changing atmospheric pressure accompanying the week’s rain and cold spell brought the pain back full force.

Contact reporter Kate Campbell at campbelldbk@gmail.com.