By BEN KLEINE

Staff writer

A man weighing more than 300 pounds tumbled over a cliff while driving an all-terrain vehicle next to a pond Tuesday beside Country Dreams Bed and Breakfast.

Harry E. Fullerton of Omaha, Neb., was visiting Country Dreams with his friend, Warren Bell, for a fishing trip. Fullerton was using the ATV, owned by Country Dreams, with the permission of Alice Richmond because he had struggled to walk to the inn’s boat dock.

Bell speculated that Fullerton may have hit the gas instead of the brake, sending him over the cliff.

Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Duane McCarty said the ATV flipped end over end at least twice before Fullerton was ejected.

Fullerton landed on his left side. He suffered injuries to his ribs and an abrasion above his left ear.

McCarty said Fullerton lay at the landing spot for at least an hour before Brenda Soyez found him when she was pulling weeds.

Marion fire, rescue, and emergency medical services, and a LifeTeam helicopter responded. Fullerton was airlifted to Via Christi-St. Francis Hospital in Wichita as a precaution, McCarty said.

“He was coherent,” McCarty said.

It took three people pushing with four people pulling up with a rope in 2-foot increments to get Fullerton up the steep incline.

“The weight complicates things,” McCarty said