EXCLUSIVE
An Aussie tourist involved in a horror motorbike collision in Bali was forced to make the heartbreaking decision to have his leg amputated.
Benji Ward, 24, suffered a serious head injury and broke four bones - including the tibia and fibula of his right leg, which pierced the skin - in the head-on crash at 2am on August 31 in the North Kuta district of Bali's Badung Regency.
A now-deleted update on a GoFundMe page, which raised over $40,000 for Mr Ward's medical expenses and eventual repatriation to Melbourne, suggested the crash was a hit-and-run.
It was a claim further echoed by Mr Ward himself who suggested police were hunting a 'Russian guy' in a video recorded in his hospital bed in the days after the accident.
But Daily Mail Australia later revealed that Mr Ward was actually the one at fault, according to Indonesian police.
Now, Mr Ward has made the devastating call to have his right leg amputated below the knee.
In late September, he was flown home to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne where he underwent seven gruelling operations before doctors presented two depressing options.
One involved attempting to reconstruct his right leg with grafts taken from his good leg, running the risk of dangerous infections and chronic pain.
The other was amputation.
'Ben made the hardest decision to have the lower part of his leg amputated to ensure he has a quality of life with a prosthetic lower leg,' a recent update on his GoFundMe page said.
'This hasn’t been easy for Ben to decide, but he knows he will have a normal life and walk again.'
Mr Ward underwent two significant amputation procedures around 10 days ago and it is believed he underwent a further operation to help fit a prosthetic on Monday morning.
He shared a picture of his legs in a wheelchair - with the right limb heavily bandaged below the knee - alongside the caption: 'Might have lost a leg but at least I got my mother back', followed by three love heart emojis.
Mr Ward has not publicly commented on this publication's revelations that his accident was not a hit-and-run.
'They're (the police) trying to find the Russian guy who hit me because he also hit another person on the same night and broke his arm,' Mr Ward said in a now-deleted video taken in the days following the crash.
Instead, Daily Mail Australia revealed Mr Ward signed a 'peace agreement' through an intermediary to pay compensation to the driver of the other motorbike - a Russian tourist called Dmitry Akimenko - to avoid being charged with a traffic offence.
Mr Ward, who was riding a Yamaha NMax with a 155cc engine in the early hours of the morning, allegedly tried to overtake another rider when he passed into a lane of oncoming traffic.
He then collided with Mr Akimenko's Kawasaki Ninja, with the Russian driver suffering relatively minor injuries.
Daily Mail Australia understands that Mr Ward agreed to pay $3,500 to Mr Akimenko for the damage to his bike and just over $1,000 to cover the cost of his medical expenses.
Pictures from the scene of the crash illustrate the horrifying impact of the collision.
One shows Mr Ward's 155cc engine Yamaha NMax lying crumpled by the side of the road, while the other shows Mr Akimenko's bike standing on the footpath.
Indonesian police said there were no witnesses to the accident but Mr Ward told them he was the one at fault.
'The hit and run crash never happened,' First Inspector Putu Deniani told this publication previously.
'The Australian and the Russian had a traffic accident and both of them were at the same medical clinic that night. They told us that they have agreed to solve the matter peacefully , without taking legal action.'
Ms Deniani added: 'We feel disappointed with Mr Ward's suggestion it was a hit and run crash.
'The fact is, it was not hit and run crash. He himself hit the Russian.'
Mr Ward did not previously respond to requests for comment.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMibmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmRhaWx5bWFpbC5jby51ay9uZXdzL2V4Y2x1c2l2ZS9hcnRpY2xlLTEyNjYwODE1L0JhbGktbW90b3JiaWtlLWNyYXNoLUJlbmppLVdhcmQtbGVnLWFtcHV0YXRlZC5odG1s0gEA?oc=5
2023-10-23 13:25:05Z
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