By John Mone and Michael Kunzelman
Associated Press
HOUSTON — Doctors didn’t expect Nick Tullier to survive after a gunman shot him in the head, stomach and shoulder during an ambush that killed three other law enforcement officers last summer in Louisiana.
A year later, the 42-year-old sheriff’s deputy is still defying the grim prognosis that his family received after the July 17 shooting in Baton Rouge.
By the time he arrived at a Houston rehabilitation hospital in November, Tullier had emerged from a vegetative state. Today, he can nod his head to answer questions with a yes or no. He can smile and laugh. And he recently spoke his first word since the shooting, which sounded like “hello.”
Tullier’s father, James, says his son has a “very long road ahead of him” but will keep fighting to recover.