David Benefield's Testimony
On 10/26/07 it was like any other Friday, except for very beautiful. It was a gorgeous day. I had worked all day pumping concrete, with the same company for the past 7 years. I got off earlier in the day to take a 3 hour nap. I met my wife for dinner at AJs Seafood off Roswell Rd. We finished dinner, which was great, because it would be my last meal for awhile. I left around 7:00 to head to my second job as a bouncer at a nightclub.
I left the shopping center where AJs seafood was located. I pulled out on my Yamaha cruiser to head to the bar. I made it about 2 miles to the underpass of 75, near Pike's Nursery, off Roswell Rd. in Marietta. A young kid, all of maybe 18, pulled in front of me. He hit me on my left side. Eye witness say I went 10-15 feet up in the air and about 20 feet across Roswell Rd. toward the gutter of Pike's Nursery.
I hit my knee so hard on the handle bars of the bike it pushed pieces of my knee all the way through my leg to my ankle, doctors would tell me later. The kid was driving an SUV that hit my left side of my leg, this led to my Tibia and Fibula both compound breaking and severing both my main arteries in my leg. My ankle was broken, but it would have been severed without the extra ankle wrap.
I was lying on the ground feeling a burning going through my leg as if it were on fire. I was pissed. You know what I wanted to do, but I could not. I was dying. I lost 4 units of blood before the ambulance arrived. I told someone to call my wife. The paramedics were doing hard chest rubs on my chest to irritate me, to keep me from passing on. I finally passed out from pain or drifted to another state of mind. The pain all went away and I got really cold, really fast.
I woke up three days later in ICU. My leg split wide open from the knee to the ankle, to relieve pressure, so my leg would not pop. I went through a total of 7 surgeries. My last surgery was only 5 months ago to replace my knee, to get me to the level I am at today. I stayed at Atlanta Medical Center for 27 days and went home.
At home, the first couple of days were the best and worst. I got a lawyer through a friend. He ended up being terrible. He did not know motorcycle law. He wanted to settle the case as fast as he could so he could get a nice cut and not have to do any work. He would never answer his phone after he had signed me. Terrible!!!!!
One year earlier my wife and I were at a bike show in Gwinnett where we met Chuck Watwood, who would change our lives forever. I thought of him like every other Lawyer. I did not like Lawyers. Boy was I going to find out that Chuck is truly the exception for all Lawyers. The one thing to know about me is that I am not a packrat. I will throw everything away. Everything in my house has a place. I kept a copy of Full Throttle in the bathroom for a year. I must have read that magazine 200 times. One day about a month later after I got home I decided to call Chuck. That one phone called changed my wife and I's life. Boy was I going to be proofed wrong about Lawyers. You have to know what kind of state of mind I was in. Lots of drugs from the hospital, depressed, sad, maybe suicidal, you name it. I was worried about losing my home and my life from infection in my leg.
When I called, he answered, what a concept. If you have ever called any Lawyer, you will get anyone else other than the actual lawyer. I found out that Chuck always answers his phone. If he does not, you can bet he is busy helping someone. "He has always called me back, if I did not get him on the first ring, in a timely manner." You can literally reach him anytime of the day, seven days a week. I have never seen anything like it. What a work horse! He is like a super breed of lawyer.
We met two days later at a downtown bike convention. " He looks so busy all the time, yet seems to make everyone feel like they are the only one. How this is done, I don't know?" My wife and I fired the other Lawyer and hired Chuck Watwood that day. Our lives have been different from that day forward. I cannot discuss the actual details of my case or any case of Chucks. However, I can let everyone reading this understand that I have spent a lot of time with Chuck. He gives and gives and gives back to the community, to every biker he possibly can. He does not care about your background your stature in the community, your ethnicity , he just truly wants to help. I have been with him on many occasions where he gives free advice because there is no case for the fellow biker. Even going as far to do the research and give advice on how to handle a case. If anyone spends any time with Chuck, you will know what I am saying is the utmost truth.
I want to thank so many people. Thanks to my wife for being there for me and taking care of me through all the trips to the hospital. Thanks to Atlanta Medical Center and all of their wonderful staff. Thank you to Dr. Furie, a great trauma doctor-he saved my leg. Thanks to Dr Stephen Smith for my amazing knee replacement at Piedmont Hospital. THANKS again to Chuck Watwood and his secretary Stephanie Repps for all that they do, to help the motorcycle community. I would recommend Chuck Watwood over any Lawyer doing motorcycle law. If you deviate you will be taken advantage of. You will certainly not get what is entitled to you, if any.
Sincerely, David Benefield
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