Two UCSB students were injured Wednesday night when they were struck by a car near the intersection of Camino Corto and El Colegio Road.

Freshmen Rachelle Lieppman and Gabriella Ascione, both 18, were struck from behind at 10:30 p.m. while traveling southbound with four friends on Camino Corto toward Abrego Road.

CHP Officer S.E. Fancher said the women were hit by a vehicle making a left turn from the westbound side of El Colegio shortly after Ascione stopped her bike in the traffic lane to allow Lieppman, who was traveling by foot, to climb onto her handle bars. He said neither alcohol nor drugs were a factor in the accident and the unidentified female driver was uninjured and allowed to leave the scene.

Lieppman suffered a deep laceration below her chin and cuts and bruises on her legs, while Ascione, in addition to scrapes on her legs, aggravated a back injury from a previous incident where she was hit by a car.

Police blocked Camino Corto between El Colegio and Abrego Roads while both girls were treated at the scene and readied for transport by UCSB paramedics to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, where a spokesman said they were seen and discharged.

Freshmen CaitrinWolff, 18, and Tashaunna Nola, 18, who witnessed the accident, said the car came around the turn very fast and struck the girls without slowing down. They said the unidentified driver did stop at the scene.

The driver was very distressed, Officer Fancher said, and at least one of the girls was in shock following the incident.

“Everything just started flying,” Nola said. “One girl flew over the hood of the car into the windshield and cracked it.”

Nola said she was amazed that both girls were able to walk after the accident.

Fancher said he is surprised that he does not see these types of accidents happen more often, especially in the Del Playa Drive area of Isla Vista, where hundreds of people walk with their backs to traffic.

“Bikers need to stay in bike lanes [on Camino Corto] and pedestrians need to remember to walk facing traffic,” Fancher said. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, but who is going to get hurt when a car hits a pedestrian?”