A New Castle girl was recovering Wednesday after a ride on the hood of a friend's car left her critically injured.

A police officer in Hermitage, Mercer County, spotted Natalie Huff, 17, "car surfing" in the parking lot of the Shenango Valley Cinemas Tuesday afternoon, but before he could approach her, she slid off the hood and was struck by the vehicle.

The driver, her friend Heather Clevinger, also 17, immediately stopped and rushed to help Natalie, who was badly injured but conscious and talking. She suffered seven broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and a broken pelvis.

She was in critical condition Wednesday night at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, Ohio, where she was flown after the accident. Despite her injuries, police said Natalie is lucky. At least 99 people died or suffered major injuries as the result of the dangerous thrill between 1990 and 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Car hoods weren't meant to be ridden on," Hermitage Police Deputy Chief Brian Blair said. "It's a dangerous, dangerous thing."

The deputy chief said he has seen the risky practice only a few times in his career but expects the "fad" to grow more popular as videos of car surfing spread on the Internet.

Tuesday's incident wasn't captured on video, Chief Blair said, adding that police have handed information from their investigation to the county district attorney's office to decide whether charges should be filed.

"It was not an assault," the deputy chief wrote in a statement on Wednesday. "It was a matter of deficiency in judgment."

According to the CDC's report, teens are most likely to car surf; the average age of people injured in the activity was 17.6, although people as young as 10 and as old as 37 also reported injuries from car surfing. Men, particularly teens between 15 and 19 years old, do it more frequently than women.

And the thrill-seeking practice is most common in the Midwest and South, although injuries were reported in 31 states, according to the report.

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