Susan M. Holden - Press

Susan Holden and her team of lawyers have been working out a daunting math question: How much money should each survivor get from the state's 35W bridge collapse fund?

How much for Sandy and Dan Cermak, who had only bruises after their van skidded to a stop on a slanting slab of concrete? How much for Garrett Ebling, who may have years of surgeries ahead of him? How much for the families of the 13 who died?

With $36.6 million from the Legislature to compensate bridge victims, Holden and two fellow lawyers on the state's compensation panel are nearly done with the impossible task of placing a dollar value on suffering. Survivors have until Thursday to accept or reject the state's offers -- which range from a low of about $5,000 to more than $2 million.

Afterward, the settlements will be made public.

The process to determine the individual dollar amounts stretched for months. Nearly every survivor sat down with at least one of the lawyers and described how the tragedy had affected their health, psyche and income. The panel members collected reams of medical records and statements of income. They tried to peer into the future -- how many more counseling appointments or months of lost wages?

They came up with numbers -- 179 numbers, to be exact -- and added them together.

"There was not enough money to pay all of those offers," Holden said. So they went back and started subtracting and adding again.

Holden is chairwoman of the Special Master Panel set up by the Legislature, and she is expecting all of the panel's offers, which aren't negotiable, to be accepted. Officials acknowledge that the money will go only so far.

Sen. Ron Latz, the St. Louis Park DFLer who co-sponsored the statute that set up the funds, said several factors played into the final amount -- financial projections based on the situations of some survivors, similar cases in personal-injury law and the political reality of the state's budget outlook.