The federal government has reached a $13 million settlement with the parents of a 7-year-old girl who as an infant suffered severe, permanent brain damage while being treated at Tripler Army Medical Center.

Sharon Morgan, an attorney for the family, told a federal judge on Feb. 11 in announcing the agreement that the girl has cerebral palsy and cannot walk or talk.

“She relies on her parents and other caregivers for all of her activities of daily living. This is a permanent condition, that she will remain dependent on others for the rest of her lifetime,” Morgan said.

The tentative settlement needs approval from the probate court in Maryland, where the girl and her parents live, and the associate attorney general in Washington, D.C.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry Yee told U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard L. Puglisi that the government will pay half of the settlement amount in a lump sum to the girl’s parents. The other half will go into a trust fund, administered by the U.S. Department of Justice, to pay for the girl’s medical needs.

According to a lawsuit the parents filed last year against the government, their daughter was born Oct. 25, 2008, at U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa, about 12 weeks premature. She was transferred to Tripler a week later because hospital officials suspected she had a perforation in her large intestine.

Tripler doctors confirmed and repaired the hole. They left one end of the intestine outside the girl’s abdomen to allow small bowel function to resume and to give the repaired large intestine the chance to heal. The girl underwent another surgery eight days later to replace and reattach the intestine.

In the weeks following the surgeries the infant showed signs of having digestive difficulties. Her abdomen was extended, she had difficulty breathing and limited bowel movement, and expended small amounts of vomit. Her feeding was increased, however, when tests revealed no blockage.

Then, on Jan. 6, 2009, the girl stopped breathing three times and the hospital put her on life support. A doctor determined that there was a complete blockage of the large intestine that required surgery.

Before transfer to the operating table, the infant’s breathing tube came out, she stopped breathing and her skin turned blue. Hospital staff then spent about 30 minutes on resuscitation efforts. According to the lawsuit, during that period, another doctor punctured the infant’s esophagus while trying to reinsert the breathing tube.

The hospital staff eventually resuscitated the infant and removed the blockage. But the oxygen deprivation caused permanent damage.

Government lawyers representing Tripler did not return calls from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for comment.