Motorcyclist Wins $28 Million After Firetruck Crushes Leg

A motorcyclist lost his leg when a firetruck crushed him in Los Angeles, yet he just won a staggering $28 million payout. Robert Danbom rode through an intersection in East Hollywood on September 2, 2021. He sat on his 2005 Harley-Davidson Roadster with a green light showing. Suddenly, firefighters in a massive 65,000-pound truck cut across his path. His bike flew into the air before he was pinned beneath the wheels. The crash dislocated his shoulder and destroyed his leg so badly that doctors had to amputate it below the knee.

His lawsuit argued first responders failed to stop or check for cross traffic. 'LAFD's massive fire tender failed to follow basic safety standards by failing to stop, or even slow, the massive vehicle before entering a very busy intersection,' the legal filing stated. The truck was heading to Kaiser Permanente based on a call that turned out to be false. Danbom had just moments to react before disaster struck.

Filippo Marchino represents Danbom and he believes this $28 million check is the largest ever for a below-the-knee amputation case. However, Marchino said his client would have been happy with half that amount. 'But there was zero engagement with the city attorney's office,' Marchino told reporters. He claimed these officials do not realize they are spending taxpayer money, not their own. It is offensive because settlements could have been much lower than this verdict.

Footage from a surveillance camera uploaded to YouTube showed the truck entering the intersection without stopping right before Danbom slid beneath it. LAFD Apparatus Operator Vincent Leong told investigators differently during an interview cited in court reports. He said he slowed down at the blind intersection and crept forward because he saw no one. 'This is a blind intersection, you know, so I slowed down,' Leong claimed. 'I started creeping forward. ... I didn't see anybody.'

Marchino told the outlet that defendants kept insisting they stopped even though video proved otherwise. If you sat through our trial, you'd be like, These guys are high, he said. They kept saying they stopped while we had video showing they did not stop. Los Angeles settlement and jury-verdict payouts have spiked by more than 350 percent over the past decade. The total rose from nearly $64 million to $289 million last year according to reports. The Daily Mail has asked the Los Angeles Fire Department for comment on this developing story.