PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County Commissioner David Sullivan said Monday he was feeling “very lucky” after sustaining back, neck and ankle injuries in a 40-foot fall from a bluff near his Cape George home.
“It could have turned out so much worse,” an upbeat Sullivan said Monday afternoon from his hospital bed at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
He also said he hopes to be back to work later this week at the county courthouse.
Sullivan, a former nurse, said he cracked the second vertebra down on his neck and fractured and compressed the lower lumbar (L-1) vertebra in the curve of his spine.
The injuries will require a back and neck brace he said he will wear at all times for about three months. He also broke his right ankle, which he said will heal in three to four weeks.
Hospital officials listed the 53-year-old, first-term commissioner in satisfactory condition late Monday.
He said he expects to begin physical therapy today and return this week to work at the courthouse, where voters seated him in November.
“I’ll come right back, but I’ve got to figure out how to get around,” said Sullivan, who expects to be on crutches while his injuries heal.
Rescue call
The Democratic commissioner was rescued by about 12 Port Townsend Fire Department and Jefferson County Fire Protection District No. 6 paid and volunteer rescue personnel.
They were called at 5:11 p.m. Sunday to the remote beachfront scene after Sullivan’s wife, Connie Ross, called emergency 9-1-1 dispatchers.
Sullivan said he was trying to clear scotch broom from a narrow, foot-accessible trail on the bluff, something he does annually.
He was tethered to a small madrona tree when the ground beneath his feet gave way and the tree branch broke.
“A huge amount of glacial till came down on me,” he said, adding that he landed on a ledge he described as “cold, wet and very mucky.”
“I was just trying to protect my head on the way down.”
Sullivan was rescued from the ledge, but the operation was anything but simple and took 2½ hours, said Tom Aumock, Port Townsend Fire Department assistant chief.
