Family of brain-injured man gets $3.5 million settlement from King County
SEATTLE – The family of a brain-injured Seattle man has settled a $3.5 million case against King County for failing to properly maintain roads promoted as bike safe, their attorney announced Wednesday.
Jeffrey Totten was biking on Redmond's Novelty Hill Road in September, 2006 when he hit a crater surrounding what is known as a ‘monument cover,’ a permanent marker in the road used for road surveys.
He was thrown from his bike and violently hit his head when he landed in the roadway. Despite wearing a bicycle helmet, Totten suffered a traumatic and permanent brain injury.
The family claimed King County had not properly maintained the asphalt around the metal cover and it had eroded leaving a large hole in the wheel track where cyclists ride.
Totten, 31 at the time of the crash, was a nuclear engineer and an endurance athlete entering a Master’s program at the Bainbridge Institute. He currently resides in an assisted living facility in Mt. Vernon and requires full-time care.
Jeffrey Totten was biking on Redmond's Novelty Hill Road in September, 2006 when he hit a crater surrounding what is known as a ‘monument cover,’ a permanent marker in the road used for road surveys.
He was thrown from his bike and violently hit his head when he landed in the roadway. Despite wearing a bicycle helmet, Totten suffered a traumatic and permanent brain injury.
The family claimed King County had not properly maintained the asphalt around the metal cover and it had eroded leaving a large hole in the wheel track where cyclists ride.
Totten, 31 at the time of the crash, was a nuclear engineer and an endurance athlete entering a Master’s program at the Bainbridge Institute. He currently resides in an assisted living facility in Mt. Vernon and requires full-time care.