BERTHOUD, Colo. -- The Berthoud High School teen involved in a traffic crash that cost two schoolmates their legs said she's truly sorry for what occurred and wishes it hadn't happened.

Michelle Berra, 17, sat down to talk to a reporter Tuesday night after she was issued a summons for two misdemeanor counts of careless driving resulting in bodily injury in connection with the Jan. 15 crash.

"Obviously I never intended to hurt anybody," she said.

Berra wouldn't discuss the events leading up to the crash, but did talk about what happened immediately after the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving slammed into a stalled Isuzu Trooper in the traffic lane of a county road on Jan. 15.

Tyler Carron and Nikko Landeros were at the back of the Isuzu attemping to change a flat tire and were pinned between the two vehicles.

Both boys lost their legs as a result of the crash and Berra said she immediately went to help them after it happened.

"When I went over to Nikko he said, 'Please help me, I'm cold, I don't know what's going on," said Berra. "So I took off my jacket and I covered him with it. And he kept saying how he didn't know what was going on and trying to look back at his legs. But I didn't want to let him look, so I put the sleeve of my coat under his head and tried to keep his head down."

Berra said that she missed two weeks of school while dealing with the reality of what had happened. Both Carron and Landeros are schoolmates and she would like to talk to them, but she said an attorney has advised that she not to. She did send them cards in the hospital, however.

"That first week I remember I was confused and I wanted to know why I hadn't been injured also. Sometimes I wish I had been injured instead of them," she said. "I can't see anyway that I could have seen it coming, which is why I call it an accident."

She said that if she could talk to them she'd tell them "how sorry I am that it happened. I would never wish anything like that to happen to anybody. I'm sorry that I can't make it better."

Going back to school was hard, Berra said, but her classmates helped when she returned two weeks after the crash.

"When I went back to school I was only met with support and people concerned and asking me how I was and telling me they understood it was just an accident and that it could have happened to anybody," said Berra. "The amount of support from them was overwhelming."

Berra's mother took her daughter out of class Tuesday after hearing of the charges.

"I'm beside myself. This was an accident," Berra's mother said. "While I don't want to take anything away from what the boys have been through, this has been tough for us, too."

Berra faces up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, or probation and community service if found guilty of the misdemeanor charges.

She is due in court on April 17 and said she'll plead not guilty.

"This is never going to go away and I'm never going to forget that it happened," she said at the end of her interview.