Fountain Valley : Intensive Care Unit Site for Exchange of Vows

A construction worker who suffered critical spinal injuries two weeks ago when the wall of a deep pit collapsed on him was married in a private bedside ceremony Sunday at Fountain Valley Community Hospital, officials said.

Paul Ursulich, 35, was married to his girlfriend of three years, Teri Sprouse, in a double-ring ceremony attended by the groom’s mother, his 14-year-old daughter, two friends and a room full of nurses who had decorated his room in the intensive care unit for the occasion.

The new Mrs. Ursulich said they had talked about a wedding for “a couple of months,” but set a date only after the Sept. 10 accident in Irvine “because we needed that commitment to each other.”

Said Teri Ursulich: “In a trauma like this, it’s real important to know that (the relationship) is for life.”

Ursulich, a carpenter from Orange, was checking the grade of a 15-foot-pit excavated for a parking garage about 11 a.m. Sept. 10, when one wall caved in, burying him to the shoulders and fracturing the cervical area of his spine. The accident occurred at Main Street and Jamboree Road, where the 13-story Irvine Corporate Plaza is under construction.

The bride, an accounts administrator from Orange, wore a cream-colored dress. The groom wore a special traction device called a “halo,” a vest with metal bars attached to the skull that holds the head and neck in exact alignment for proper healing, intensive care unit nurse Carol Hughes said.

Although he was critically injured, Ursulich was responding well and was slated to be transferred today to a rehabilitation facility in Pomona, his wife said.

“He’s alive and he’s healthy; that’s the most important part to me,” she said.