los2188
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Baeyla Gutierrez
http://hamptonroads.com/2015/05/how-does-11yearold-girl-explain-her-missing-thumb-piranhas-maybeDon't expect Baeyla Gutierrez to tell you how she really lost her left thumb.
Medical malpractice doesn't cut it on the playground, the 11-year-old said.
But piranhas? That'll work.
"She's tired of people asking," explained Malanena Gutierrez, who has heard her daughter give more than a few outlandish stories regarding her missing digit.
"She's told people it was bitten off by a wolf. She's said her dad bit it off," the mother of four said with a laugh.
The federal government agreed Thursday to pay the Gutierrezes $125,000 to settle a lawsuit over Baeyla's thumb, which was amputated in 2011 after the then-7-year-old girl went to a Navy clinic in Norfolk for stitches.
U.S. District Judge Henry Morgan Jr. signed off on the agreement today after reviewing various documents related to the suit.
Karl Protil Jr., an attorney representing Baeyla's mother, explained that the settlement was the product of significant negotiations with the U.S. Attorney's Office. He stressed that the government denied fault and made a "pretty strong argument" for why its medical staff was not liable for what happened to the girl's thumb.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.