Paraplegic Woman Burned by Seat in GM Vehicle, Sues GM for Personal Injury

A paraplegic woman from Portland, Maine, is suing General Motors in a very different type of lawsuit than the manufacturer has faced in recent months – she received a burn from one of the seat warmers that required months of medical attention, sues GM for personal injury.

Emma Verrill, 26, is paralyzed from the waist down and cannot feel hot and cold in those extremities. In 2012, she and a friend went on a beach trip in the friend’s Chevrolet Suburban, which had heated seats. The next day, Verrill discovered that she had a palm-sized burn on her buttocks. She had to undergo surgery due to the severity of the injury, and spent months in her childhood home recovering.

Her personal injury lawsuit claims negligence on the part of General Motors, for failing to properly test the rear seat heaters and ensuring that the seats would not reach “dangerously high temperatures that would burn human flesh.” Because of her spinal injury, acquired when she was 15, she was unable to feel the seat heater when it switched on, and became so hot that it burned her.

“I have very limited sensation. I have touch sensation, but I don’t have temperature sensation. So if water is too hot or if something is too cold, I can’t tell. Because of that, my body can tell me in other ways if there is something that isn’t really right. And I just knew that something was wrong,” Verrill said.

The burn injury was so bad that doctors had to give her a skin graft. After the surgery, Verrill spent months bedridden while her parents took care of her.

“I couldn’t do anything for myself,” Verrill said. “I was literally in bed on my stomach. It’s not like I was just homebound.”

“The risk of having a skin graft like I did, if I were to have a pressure sore on that area where the scar is, they can’t just keep taking skin and layering it,” Verrill said. “This means that if something else happens and I were to get a pressure sore in that area, it would be pretty serious.”

Although wheelchair-bound due to her spinal injury, Verrill pursued a career in France for two years as an English teacher, after graduating college with a Bachelor’s Degree. She was home in 2012 to figure out what her next life step would be, when the burn injury left her dependent for months on her family.

She is suing for unspecified damages in the personal injury case, for past and future medical expenses as well as “noneconomic damages in an amount to be determined at trial.”

The Strom Law Firm Can Help with Personal Injury Cases

If you are unsure of your consumer rights, and you or a loved one have been injured in an accident, by a defective product, or from a food quality problem, you may be entitled to compensation for medical bills or lost wages. The experienced lawyers at Strom Law, LLC, can help. Please contact us for a free consultation regarding your personal injury case.803.252.4800.