Ron Fuller, the superintendent for the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency, is sporting a neck brace these days, but considering the alternative, he's grateful.

Fuller was injured on the final day of a spring break trip to Costa Rica with his wife and several educator friends, including Ric Perry, an assistant superintendent at Portage Public Schools.

Along with others in the group, Fuller was taking a final dip in the ocean when he was smacked by a towering wave that slammed him head first into the ocean floor. When the wave receded Fuller found that he couldn't move his arms and legs.

Perry was nearby, realized that Fuller was in distress, and pulled him out of the water. Fuller hadn't broken his neck, but he severely bruised his spinal cord. 

Fuller was able to fly home the next day with the rest of group - the plane trip from hell, he says - and he's is back at work. But the neck hasn't fully healed and that will take time, doctors are telling him.

It was, Fuller ruefully says, one of his more memorable vacations. And Ric Perry, he adds, will never again pay for a drink in Fuller's presence.
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Source: Kalamazoo Gazette, 4.26.09