A 23-year-old model and fashion editor is lucky to be alive after she accidentally walked into a small plane's propeller on Saturday.
Lauren Scruggs, of Plano, Texas, was getting off a small private plane after looking at Christmas lights around the area when she walked into the moving propeller, Fox Dallas reports.
Scruggs' left hand was severed, and she suffered eye, shoulder and head injuries. She is now recovering at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, according to ABC News.
The fashion blogger of Lolo.com (and celebrity interviewer -- she interned on the set of "Gossip Girl") underwent several surgeries over the weekend. The extent of her brain injury is unknown at this time, a family spokesman told ABC News.
Lauren's parents spoke with "Good Morning America" on Tuesday. "Yesterday was a good day, there was a lot of really positive progress," Lauren's father Jeff told "GMA." "They took out her tube in the afternoon. She didn't speak right away ... I said Lauren will you say 'hi' to Daddy, and she goes, 'Hi.' Later she told one of Cheryl's sisters that she loves her. It's so encouraging to us. She's really uncomfortable as you can imagine."
It's unknown how Scruggs walked into the propeller, but her father thinks that she was going up to the cockpit to thank the pilot, saying, "She would have been grateful for him taking her up to see the Christmas lights around Dallas."
ABC News aviation consultant John Nance told the program that accidents like Scruggs' are "extremely rare." "It sounds like this is a combination of a bad procedure by the pilot and the passenger not properly realizing her proximity. One of the things I'd have to look at is why in the world a pilot permitted a passenger to board or deboard while a propeller was turning," Nance added.
Fox Dallas reports that the FAA is looking into the incident.
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