LOS GATOS, Calif. (AP) – A 6-year-old girl is recovering after surgeons reattached her left hand, severed when it was caught in a loop of jump rope that had snagged on the axle of her mother’s car.

Erica Rix underwent 10 hours of surgery after the accident in early September and spent nine days in intensive care before returning home.

Erica was playing with a jump rope in the back seat of her mother’s car and let one end of the rope out the window.

The rope caught on the car’s axle and a loop of the rope tightened around the girl’s wrist, slicing off her hand.

Passing motorist Jim Bailey, of Saratoga, stopped and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, the San Jose Mercury News said.

Passer-by Pat Heller spotted Erica’s hand lying on the street, and she and a resident directed traffic around it.