LOS ANGELES — In the hospital, La'Veyah Mosley struggled at first to understand what had happened. The 12-year-old girl woke up with both arms covered in layers of gauze.
"Do I have fingers?" she asked her mother, Staneisha Matthews.
The doctor eventually told her the hard news: On her left hand, no, she did not. Matthews reassured La'Veyah that she would recover, then slipped away to the hallway to cry.