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Woman Claims Strip Club Is Responsible for Severed Thumb: Lawsuit

By Makini Brice | Update Date: Feb 13, 2013 12:41 PM EST

A woman named Sarah Berry has filed a suit against Delilah's Den in New Jersey. She said that, at their ninth annual Diamond G-String Competition, she severed her thumb. Now she is seeking $50,000 in damages.

The Philadelphia Daily News reports that dancers in the G-string competition perform with a variety of props: swords, footballs and hula hoops in an effort to prove their sex appeal and $10,000. In Sarah Berry's case, she was using a "half-moon aerial apparatus", a metal bar fashioned in the shape of a crescent that was attached to the ceiling. In her suit, Ms. Berry, 35 years old, says that, while she was rehearsing for the contest, her thumb was amputated from the device.

Her attorney James D. Golkow says that Ms. Berry was not a dancer at the club; she had merely entered into the contest at the suggestion of her friend. She had trained professionally on this type of apparatus in the hopes that she would be able to apply her skill in performances on Broadway or in the circus. Indeed, according to the newspaper, her Facebook page is filled with pictures of Berry performing on the apparatus.

However, Berry says that the club failed to make sure that the apparatus was suitably designed, constructed, inspected or tested before they let the participants use it, United Pres International reports. She says in her lawsuit that the club also did not warn participants in the contest of its dangers.

Berry also names Seth Donkochik in the suit. His company, SD Design, is reportedly the designer and builder of the half-moon apparatus.

Berry now works as a photographer. The amputation required surgery, though the attorney said that he did not know what the outcome of that procedure was. She is reportedly seeking money for damages of "pain and suffering, disfigurement, humiliation and embarrassment."

Though it may seem surprising that an accident such as this one occurred in a strip club, it is not as uncommon as one might believe. Last year, a man sued a strip club called the Penthouse Club because he said that one of the dancer's moves ruptured his bladder, according to Medical Daily.

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