Injured Transformers Extra Has Permanent Brain Damage: Suit

Gabriela Cedillo was injured Sept. 1 while filming in Hammond, Ind.

The woman critically injured this summer on the set of "Transformers 3" is permanently brain damaged, her family said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Gabriela Cedillo, 24, was an extra in the film.  She was struck by an object that came through her windshield as she drove her car on the Northwest Indiana set on Sept. 1 (video below).

"From what I know, an extra is in the background.  Never did we think she'd be put in danger," Cedillo's brother, Adolfo Romo, said Tuesday.

Cedillo was airlifted from the area to Loyola Medical Center, in Maywood.  She's currently at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where her attorney said she remains paralyzed and may have lost vision in her left eye. 

Romo said his sister is able to write with her right hand.  He said she's written, "I love you and everything is going to be okay," but said his sister doesn't remember the accident.

The suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges negligence by the filmmakers:

"To have people driving their vehicles in close proximity to stunts that are occurring as violently as these were, I think that's unusual.  I think it's careless. I think it's negligent," said the family's attorney, Todd A. Smith, of Power Rogers & Smith.

Plans to continue filming in the Chicago area were scrapped after the accident.

Paramount Pictures released a statement Tuesday, saying:

"We are all terribly sorry that this accident occured.  Our thoughts, prayers and best wishes are with Gabriela, her family and loved ones.  The production will continue to provide all the help we can to Gabriela and her family during this difficult time."

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