A Maine woman is suing General Motors after she received a palm-sized burn from a heated seat.
Emma Verrill, 26, was sitting in the back of her friend’s Chevrolet Suburban back in June 2012 and had no idea that the seats were heated. Verrill is paralyzed from the waist down, and could not feel that the heat had been turned on, although she believes that there was no reason the heat should have been on anyway. It got so hot that she woke up the next day with a palm-size burn on her backside.
According to the Portland Press Herald, Verrill filed a complaint against GM last month in U.S. District Court in Portland. She holds the already troubled automaker responsible for not adequately testing the seats to determine if they get hot enough to burn human flesh.
“I have very limited sensation. I have touch sensation, but I don’t have temperature sensation,” Verrill explained to the Press Herald. “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 that she had to undergo surgery after discovering the burn and she has a scar as a result.
As for GM, the company has denied that their seat heater was defective, reports the Associated Press. The company also said that it was not responsible for Verrill’s injury.
Although GM has been forced to recall 20 million vehicles in 2014 alone, none of the recalls have involved the Suburban.