Sep 29, 2014 2 min read

DETROIT – At least 23 people died and 16 people were seriously injured in crashes involving General Motors cars with defective ignition switches.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who was hired by GM to compensate victims, updated the totals in an Internet posting Monday.

Feinberg said he received 153 death claims since August. Of those, 23 were deemed eligible for compensation payments, up from 21 last week.

Sixteen of the 714 injury claimants also received compensation offers.

GM acknowledged it knew about faulty ignition switches in Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars for more than a decade. Yet it didn’t recall them until February of this year. The switches can slip out of the “on” position, which causes the cars to stall, knocks out power steering and turns off the air bags.

Feinberg, who previously handled payments to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the BP oil spill, began accepting claims Aug. 1 and set a deadline of Dec. 31. He said GM hasn’t placed any limit on the amount of money that can be spent on settlements. GM set aside $400 million for compensation, but said that could grow to $600 million.

Also Monday, the family of a 7-year-old New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, boy who was injured in a crash caused by a faulty switch, accepted a settlement offer from Feinberg. Attorney Robert Hilliard said in a statement the family of Trenton Buzard, who is now 7 years old, agreed to the undisclosed offer.

The settlement stems from an April 2, 2009 crash in which Trenton suffered spinal injuries that left him paralyzed from the chest down. According to his family’s lawsuit against GM, Trenton, who was almost 2 years old at the time, was strapped into a car seat in a 2005 Cobalt driven by his great-grandmother, Esther Mathews.

Hilliard said the settlement makes sure Trenton receives medical care and improved mobility and quality of life.

Trenton’s family is the fourth Hilliard client to settle with Feinberg since the first 15 settlement offers went out last week.