BANGOR – Author Stephen King remained in the hospital over the weekend while doctors continued to assess what should be done regarding the leg pain he has endured since a 1999 van accident that almost killed him.

“It’s really still a day-to-day thing,” King’s Bangor attorney Warren Silver said Monday regarding the author’s hospitalization. “I don’t know if he’s going to be in there another week or another two weeks.”

King, 56, originally was hospitalized at Eastern Maine Medical Center on Nov. 23 after being diagnosed with pleural effusion, an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the membrane surrounding the lung. King then underwent surgery to remove the fluid.

The author was diagnosed with pneumonia before his recent trip to New York City to receive the National Book Foundation’s 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented Nov. 19 for lifetime achievement in writing. His condition worsened upon returning to Maine, where he was hospitalized.

Although the pneumonia is almost gone, according to Silver, doctors now are trying to determine what to do about the constant pain King experiences in his right leg from injuries received in the accident in June 1999. Bryan Smith of Fryeburg struck the author with a van as King walked on the shoulder of a road in North Lovell, where King has a summer home.

As a result of the accident, King suffered a broken leg and hip, a punctured lung, broken ribs and other injuries. He underwent a number of surgeries to repair his injuries, some of which still bother him. Silver previously noted a direct connection between the pneumonia for which King originally was hospitalized last month and the injuries suffered in the accident.

Smith, who told police his dog had distracted him before the van hit King, pleaded guilty to driving to endanger and his license was suspended for six months. He later was found dead at his home after an apparently accidental overdose of a prescription drug.