One of our clients is a ten-year old girl. I’ve been involved with her videos, photos and interviews. She was involved in a roll-over accident when she was seven years old. She and her cousin were seriously injured. Another family member was killed.

There have been way too many doctors’ appointments in her young life. She has spent way too much time listening to attorneys. The legal talk makes her sleepy, it makes her tired and she wants to get away from it. She should be outside playing but she is here with us as we defend her legal rights and attempt to make justice out of what has happened. I get her a toy and a children’s book to distract her. But there is no getting away from her disfigurement and the permanent disability it has created.

She remembers the screaming, some of it her own, as she looked down and saw that four of her fingers had been sliced off in the accident. Where were they? All she saw was blood. How could you lose your fingers? All this went through the mind of a seven year old. It must have been horrifying. She wanted her mother to make everything okay. But her mother was back at the camp ground and didn’t know. For our client, the wait for her mother to get there, and the emergency responders must have seemed like an eternity.

Her hand looks strange. The pictures I took show the angle of the sharp slice that took off her fingers. It’s disturbing. I won’t show them here.

Rescuers and family members searched through the sand for her fingers. Think about that for a moment. They found one; her middle finger. The amazing doctors at Primary Children’s Hospital reattached that finger to her index finger. They decided that was more useful to her long term. They grafted skin onto her baby finger hoping it would function better and look less disfigured.

My little friend does her best. She has worked very hard to perfect her handwriting. (Her grades suffered after the accident when the teacher couldn’t read her homework). Her nubbed fingertip pads have calluses from school work. I asked her to write her name out on a piece of white paper for me. It was slow-going, but she was proud of her progress.

She is ten now. In school, everyone knows about her fingers. Kids never miss an opportunity to taunt and tease her. She hides her hurt from everyone, even her mother. This troubles her mother who wants to be there for her and shield her from this pain.

There are dozens of stories like hers, or worse, terrible deaths that have resulted from Yamaha’s insistence on profits over safety.   CBS News estimates there have been 59 deaths and hundreds of accidents resulting from this machine.

We believe that Yamaha be held accountable for manufacturing and selling a vehicle they knew was unreliable, top heavy and readily prone to roll-overs. Her attorney here is a warrior on her behalf. We can’t restore her fingers, but we can make sure she has a little financial security as an adult. Her job choices are limited. She deserves compensation. I want all that for her too. Mostly though, I wish we had the science to grow fingers back, especially hers.