Injured Runner Sues Saddleback : Jurisprudence: College accused of operating unsafe golf driving range. Bethel lost an eye after she was hit by errant shot.

Attorneys for Ashley Bethel, the young track star who lost an eye after she was struck by a golf ball last February at Saddleback College, have sued the school, alleging that negligence on the part of the designer, builder and operator of the college’s driving range led to the accident.

The suit, which was filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, seeks unspecified general and punitive damages, but Irvine attorney Jim Crandall gave an indication of the judgment he wants when he filed a $6.25-million claim against the school with the State Board of Control in May.

Bethel, now a freshman at Mission Viejo High School, was running on the Saddleback College track Feb. 23 when she was struck by a golf ball that apparently cleared the protective netting surrounding the adjacent driving range.

The impact shattered the eye socket and destroyed the eye and surrounding tissue, blood vessels, nerves and bone. The eye had to be removed, and Bethel, a three-time national youth pentathlon champion and aspiring Olympian, has undergone numerous surgical procedures to have a prosthesis implanted.

Skip Bethel, Ashley’s father, said Thursday the family has accumulatedmore than $70,000 in medical bills.

Skip, Jason Bethel, Ashley’s brother, and sisters Morgan and Dana Bethel are listed along with Ashley as plaintiffs because they witnessed the accident and, Crandall claims, suffered severe mental shock, suffering and anguish.

Listed as defendants are the Saddleback Community College District, the State of California, Mission Viejo-based Donovan Brothers’ Golf, which manages the driving range, San Clemente-based Porter, Jenson, Hansen & Manzagol, which designed the range, Irvine-based Culp Construction, which built the range, and USA Track and Field, which sponsors and organizes track and field events at the school.

The suit alleges the defendants had knowledge of a dangerous condition--golf balls clearing the nets surrounding the range and landing on and near the track--but ignored the need to correct it.

Though Bethel, 15, returned to competition last spring and won two national pentathlon championships this summer, she was not able to match her pre-accident marks. In the summer of 1993, her long jump of 19-feet-7 1/4 inches as a 13-year old would have placed her second in that year’s State high school girls’ meet.