There he was--the doctor who put my knee back together all those years ago.   

          Instead of a green surgical gown, he wore an orange jumpsuit issued by the Waukesha County jail.

         The hands that once did wonders with a scalpel were now in cuffs.

         Dr. Mark Benson is probably the most reviled man in Wisconsin this week--accused of allowing a cocktail of different meds to coarse through his veins as he  piled his SUV into the back of a car at an Oconomowoc stop light Friday afternoon.       The crash ended the life of Jennifer Bukosky, her daughter, and Bukosky's unborn child.      Benson shouldn't have been behind the wheel, having lost his license just days before, after his third DUI conviction.      He'd already lost his medical license a couple of times, then voluntarily surrendered it a few years ago.     The issue: drugs.      Benson supposedly wrote fake prescriptions to himself, and admitted to deputies Friday that he'd taken several meds before heading off to--of all things--a drug store Friday afternoon.      It was a decision that ended three lives, radically altered those of scores more.    

       This isn't the Mark Benson I knew.

       I'd blown out my left knee playing basketball with Radio City colleagues in the winter of '82-83 at University School, and got referred to Dr. Benson by chance.      He knew there was ligament damage, but also realized the sedentary nature of my profession.     Lay off the teenage antics, he warned.    You're not a young man any more, and you shouldn't act like one (he is four years older than me).      Stick with passive exercise, and we won't have to cut into you, he warned.

       Like THAT was going to happen.

       Day-to-day stuff and the occasionally physical labor were enough to shred whatever support was left in the joint, and I returned to Dr. Benson a man on a leg and a half.      You need surgery, he said, and it's going to be big--a total reconstruction, which involved laying my leg open, reattaching what ligaments he could and looping another out of my thigh.     He spent eight hours cleaning up the mess, leaving me in a toes-to-hip cast and a promise that the knee would be as good as new.    

       The Mark Benson that took care of me that spring was thoughtful, caring, and professional.        We tried to get him on the radio to talk about me and break funny about what I'd been through, but he'd have none of it.       Witty and open in person, he wanted nothing to do with any notoriety--not even the little he'd get from cutting into a marginal radio goofball.        His bedside manor was beyond reproach as he answered every question my wife and I tossed at him.       Dr. Benson flashed no "I'm-the-doctor-you're-the-patient" 'tude that you sometimes see.       He checked in frequently as I rehabbed, fitting me with a brace so I could at least TRY to do something moderately athletic.    

       And then, we went our separate ways.

      Other people here at work would stop by, asking me who that doctor was that did my knee.       They had a friend, or a kid, who had an issue and they wondered if I would recommend Mark Benson.     I did, without fail.       I'd seen nothing that would make me think otherwise.

       Over the years, I'd heard things suggesting that maybe, just maybe, life wasn't so good for my surgeon.      I'd heard stories about an eye problem.      Personal issues.      Scuttlebutt about a license being lost.

        The knee flared up a few years ago, and of course, my instinct was to go back to Dr. Benson.      He worked out of St. Joseph's Hospital, remembered me from days gone by, gave me a cortisone shot and sent me on my way.      His hands were steady.    He seemed like the Mark Benson who the fates had hooked me up with all those years ago.    He seemed to be the same guy.

       Obviously, he wasn't.

       Dr. Benson is now a hated man, and I'm sure some of you reading this have no appetite for hearing about anything good he might've done in the days before his name became a headline.      The man who fixed my knee will be forever remembered as the symbol for the unrepentant repeat OWI offender--brazen enough not only to drive after eating a handful of pills, but to do so within days of license revocation.          A guy who is considered such a danger to the community he once served  that a judge is keeping him locked up pending a million dollars cash bail, saying that Benson can't be allowed to play Russian Roulette should he decide to get behind a wheel again.          A father who, according to the criminal complaint, called his family after Friday's crash, telling his daughter that she should change her last name so she wouldn't be linked to what had happened.

        The hands that fixed my knee are now in cuffs.        The doctor who once wore a green surgical gown as he hovered over me for eight hours is now in jailhouse orange.       The man who helped make me and, no doubt, many others whole again is now a guy who's life is a shambles.       Because of what he allegedly did, a mother and her daughter are gone, along with a baby due in June.

       "Sad" is such a small word, and in this case, so painfully inadequate.        

      .