LOVELAND, Colo. -- An 11-year-old girl who had her hand ripped off in a Jet Ski accident at Boyd Lake in Loveland is grateful that rescue workers and her father were able to save her hand in time so that doctors were able to reattach it.

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Hear About What Happened To Girl When She Had Her Hand Severed

The accident occurred two weeks ago when Jaime Culley and her friend were riding on an inner tube behind her father's Jet Ski. Jaime's left hand somehow became entangled on the tow rope and a sudden force yanked off the hand and all the tendons that connected it to her elbow.

Her father told 7NEWS that he felt a tug on the Jet Ski after they passed over a big wake and looked behind him to see that his daughter and her friend had been tossed off the inner tube. He went around to them when Jaime said, "Daddy, I'm hurt" and lifted her arm out of the water.

While emergency crews helped the sixth-grader to shore, her father went back out on the lake to help find her severed hand. He was about to give up when he spotted it still tangled up in the rope, attached to the inner tube.

"I can tell you that the hardest part of this whole situation was pulling the hand out of the water. I had spent a number of years in the Coast Guard and seen some very gruesome accidents, but this one was far worse, being your own daughter's," said Jim Culley, Jaime's father.

Culley cut the rope from the hand, put the limb in a bag of ice and sprinted to the ambulance as it was pulling away.

"The father, he stopped us, as I was starting to drive up the boat ramp and he had her hand. We put that in the ambulance and we took off," said Rick Davis with the Loveland Fire Department.

Rescuers were amazed that doctors were able to reattach Jaime's hand and are as equally impressed with Jaime's bravery.

"It's just amazing. I mean, this kid has her hand ripped off. She doesn't know where the hand is, doesn't know whether she's going to get it back, and there she is -- she didn't cry, didn't whine, didn't moan," said Dirk Steensma with Thompson Valley Emergency Medical Services.

"She never had a tear in her eye. She's followed all of our requests, you know, how she held her arm. Even when we started the IV, she just cooperated fully, didn't pull away in pain or anything," said Rob Robben with Thompson Valley EMS.

"A couple of weeks before (the accident) my mom sent me an e-mail that said, 'If God leads you to it, he'll lead you through it,' and I just kept thinking that the entire way through it all," said Jaime.

The plastic surgeon from Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital who reattached Jamie's hand said he knew right away that it would be a difficult procedure because of the severity of the tear, but because paramedics had done a great job preserving the hand, the initial surgery was a success.

However, he said Jaime is not out of the woods yet.

"She has a long way to go and that's the advantage of the institute. We have specialists. The hand therapy will be exceptionally important for her," said Dr. William Brown, director of the Institute for Limb Preservation.

Brown said Jamie may never regain complete use of her left hand but he said children are resilient, adaptive and usually recover from this type of injury much better than adults.