King County to pay brain-injured bicyclist $3.5M

Danielle Leavell sees her husband at least every weekend, often bringing him home to see friends.

She hosted a large Easter gathering Sunday at the Fremont condominium she and Jeffrey Totten used to share.

But nothing's really been the same since the bicycle accident on a King County bike path that left him with a permanent brain injury.

Totten has lost most of his memories of the nine years he and Leavell have been together, and he doesn't consistently understand he can no longer live with her because he needs round-the-clock supervision.

He has become, she says, "very childlike."

On Wednesday, attorneys for the couple announced that King County has agreed to pay $3.5 million for Totten's care for the rest of his life.

A Navy veteran and endurance athlete, Totten was biking with friends down Novelty Hill Road, east of Redmond, on Sept. 4, 2006, when the front wheel of his bike dipped into a depression, abruptly stopping the bike and throwing him headfirst onto the pavement. He was 31.

Since the accident he has been in a hospital, a nursing home, a rehabilitation center and now a group home in the Skagit Valley. He will never work again and will need professional care for the rest of his life.

Leavell recalled the young, vital man she met when they were in high school together in Olney, Ill., before he joined the Navy and became a nuclear-plant engineer.

It was no big deal for Totten to tell her as he headed out the door that he was doing "a century" — or a 100-mile bike ride — and would be home later. He had done a few triathlons and had ridden RAMROD: Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day.

On the day of his accident, he was training for the 700-mile, 90-hour Paris-Brest-Paris bike tour.

"He was amazing, nothing short of amazing," Leavell said in a phone interview. "This is a go-getter who was just enjoying life. That's part of the pain. He was so high up in the game of life and it was really taken out from under him."

Totten regularly biked to work from Fremont to his job with an energy company in Issaquah. He had enrolled in the Bainbridge Graduate Institute's MBA in sustainable business program. The new-student retreat was held the day after his accident.

One of the couple's lawyers, John Christensen, said the county was at fault because it showed Novelty Hill Road as a bike route on printed and online maps but failed to maintain it in a safe condition. Totten's bike struck a hole surrounding a survey marker that had grown deeper with successive paving jobs. He was wearing a helmet.

"We deeply regret that this incident occurred and the bicyclist was so severely injured," said King County Transportation Department spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok. "With the involvement of a mediator we were able to reach a settlement of this case without the necessity of a difficult and lengthy jury trial. We feel the settlement will insure that Mr. Totten has the resources he needs to secure his future well-being and medical needs."

The settlement paid less money than Totten and Leavell might have received if the trial had gone to a jury, Christensen said, but it will provide for his care for the rest of his life. "When you're faced with that versus what a jury may or may not do, your only goal is to take care of your client. Jeff will be taken care of and he will receive excellent care."

Totten, who was in a mostly unresponsive "wakeful coma" for seven months after the accident, is now in a rural, adult family home. He feeds chickens, takes care of goats and counts cows.

Leavell, a freelance photographer, is pleased that the lawsuit has been settled, but, "obviously it's such a tragedy and it's very difficult to live constantly in that tragedy. ...

"I have a lifetime of memories with him and he hardly remembers me at all. I'm very much a widow in some respects — I've lost my husband."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105