King Co. Reaches $3.5M Settlement In Crippling Bike Crash

A multi-million dollar settlement has been reached for a Seattle man who sued King County over a crippling bicycle crash.

The county will pay $3.5 million to Jeffrey Totten, who will spend the rest of his life struggling with traumatic brain injury.

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Totten was an endurance athlete who climbed mountains, rode bicycles and lived a very active life until his accident put him in a wakeful coma for seven months.

”I've got a traumatic brain injury. A traumatic brain injury is the type of injury that's like once you have it, you've always got it,” Totten said in a video released by his lawyers.

He spent the last two and half years struggling to recover and rehabilitate. His left side still partially paralyzed and his international career as an electrical power plant engineer over.

“I don't want to talk about this to anyone because they're just going to say, 'Jeff, you're never going to be able to do that and I'm tired of getting told that,” Totten said.

Totten’s wife, Danielle Leavell, has known him since high school.

”I've lost my husband, our relationship now is very parental. He's now my child,” Leavell said.

Totten was riding westbound down Novelty Hill Road on Sept. 4, 2006, when his bicycle hit a little pothole surrounding a county survey marker, called a monument.

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“They're advertising this as a bike route. If you are advertising it as a bike route you don't have monuments on the fog line where a bike is going to be traveling, particularly one that looks like that,” said Totten’s attorney, Richard Adler.

The $3.5 million settlement was reached just days before the case was to go before a jury.

“There's no amount of money, there's no amount of money in the world that we would trade everything to have Jeff back, Leavell said.

Today, the survey marker is covered and the county leveled the roadway as much as they can, but the pavement is beginning to crack again.

A county spokesperson said the county regrets the incident and believes that with this settlement Totten has the resources he needs to continue his rehabilitation.