A Model X crushed a 5-year-old's finger in a little-known contraption called an 'ice breaker' - and Tesla's lawyers are blaming the child and her parents

• A 5-year-old in Ukraine got her finger crushed in the door of a Tesla. It took two hours for emergency crews to wrest her finger from the Model X door, WLS-TV's Dan Noyes first reported.
• Her finger was caught in a small black device called the "ice breaker," which has a hole big enough to fit a small finger or pencil. The ice breaker is not present in any Tesla owners manual, and many salespeople don't even know about it, according to WLS-TV.The ice breaker is apparently designed to help open the door in case it gets stuck in very cold weather.
• The family of the 5-year-old sued Tesla in San Jose federal court. Tesla says it is not at fault for the finger crushing. 
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Some owners of the Tesla Model X have experienced issues with the doors that they claim could put them at risk of injury. And now, a 5-year-old in Ukraine is among those complaints, WLS-TV's Dan Noyes first reported.

The child, named Milana Izzetov, got her finger crushed in the door of a Tesla. The family of the 5-year-old sued Tesla in San Jose federal court. Tesla, which did not respond to Business Insider's requests for comment, said in email correspondence with the family's attorney that it was not at fault for the finger crushing. 

The family alleges that the child's finger was caught in a small black device called the "ice breaker," which has a hole big enough to fit a small finger or pencil. Her father, Marlen Izzetov, owns the Tesla.

The ice breaker is apparently designed to help open the door in case it gets stuck in very cold weather.

The ice breaker is not present in any Tesla owners manual, and many salespeople don't even know about it, The San Francisco-based attorney Dan Tan, who is representing the family in court, said.

"What happens is that on all Model Xs, apparently under certain circumstances, this latch retracts into the frame of the door," Tan told Business Insider. "But if anything is put in there, it's essentially crushed."

He added, "This is not something you see in any other car or form of transportation."

In response to the WLS-TV report, a Tesla owner named Greg Furstenwerth shared on Twitter that he tried using the ice breaker and a screwdriver got caught in the device. "This is something that is a oversight for sure," Furstenwerth said on Twitter.

It took two hours for emergency crews to wrest the 5-year-old's finger from the Model X door, and her fingertip was ultimately broken. 

Tesla describes the Model X online as the "safest SUV ever," but other online reports indicate some people have experienced issues with the doors on their Tesla vehicles. A case of the ice breaker crushing a finger, though, hasn't been previously reported.

That's why Tesla's legal counsel stands by the safety of the car. 

According to a November 16 email correspondence Tan sent to Business Insider, Ryan McCarthy, Tesla's managing counsel, said several factors may explain why this Model X crushed the child's finger:

• Izzetov, the owner of the Tesla and father of the victim, bought the vehicle used from a third party, "so we cannot rule out the possibility of any damages and/or aftermarket modifications to the vehicle that may have contributed to the incident," McCarthy wrote.
• Tesla doesn't conduct business in Russia, Ukraine, or the Czech Republic. McCarthy wrote "(W)e don't support vehicles in those regions and there is no warranty applicable there, bearing on those claims in your draft
  complaint."
• The vehicle was in a prior collusion.

Still, while Tan claims the Model X is "dangerous," Tesla's legal counsel rebutted that assertion and blamed the child and her parents for the injury.

"Our retracting door latch assembly, in 'normal use,' functions without issue multiple times per day, per vehicle," McCarthy wrote in the November email. "Indeed, the latch functions thousands of times per day across the applicable fleet with no other notice of an injury besides your client.

"That your client stuck her finger in the latch mechanism doesn't reveal a defect in the latch but rather an unfortunate and regrettable decision on her part and/or failure of oversight on the part of the adults in the area," he added.

Despite his daughter's injury, Izzetov told WLS-TV that he intends to buy another Tesla Model X for his wife. 

Read the entire WLS-TV report by Dan Noyes here.

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