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A 21-year-old Slovenian woman deliberately cut off her own hand with a circular saw in an effort to cash in on an insurance claim, authorities say.

According to police, the unidentified woman’s family claimed she lost her hand as a result of an accident on their property, saying it happened when the woman was attempting to saw off tree branches. The family said the woman slipped while using the saw, severing her left hand.

Authorities told ABC News the woman had taken out five different insurance policies months before suffering the injury in January and had only made a few payments on each of the contracts. The woman would have allegedly stood to gain 400,000 euros (about CAD$602,000).

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0:31 Prosecutor releases surveillance video of man staging ‘slip and fall’ Prosecutor releases surveillance video of man staging ‘slip and fall’

The woman was unemployed at the time and had no other source of income, ABC reported. A 29-year-old relative was also detained in the investigation.

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“With one of her accomplices, she intentionally amputated her left hand, hoping to stage it as an accident,” Ljubljana police spokesman Valter Zrinski told ABC News.

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Family members left the severed hand behind rather than bring it to the hospital to ensure the disability was permanent. However, the hand was recovered and doctors were able to sew it back on.

“Her hand is recovering well,” Zrinski said.

The woman faces up to eight years in prison.

–with a file from the Associated Press