Miami-Dade County pays $4 million for girl with severed spine
Miami-Dade County has agreed to pay a record $4 million for the care of a girl whose spinal cord was severed in a crash with a police cruiser.
As Hurricane Matthew approached nearly six years ago, Miami-Dade police K-9 officer Daniel Escarra was speeding into the intersection of Northwest 57th Avenue and West Flagler Street while it had non-working stoplights, the Miami Herald reports.
Escarra was dispatched to track down a suspect connected to a vehicle theft who was running through a residential neighborhood, the Herald reports, when he slammed into an Audi sedan driven by the family of then 13-month-old Yeilyn Quiroz Otero, who was sitting on her mother’s lap.
The additional $3.8 million settlement is the largest claim the county has ever paid, and it far exceeds an initial $200,000 the county already paid for Quiroz Otero. But it’s far short of what she’ll need.
After past medical and legal bills are paid, she’ll get about $1.5 million. Her lawyers said her lifetime medical needs alone will cost $11 million.
