Punter Culleton knew it was bad. He was lying on a rugby field, on Martha’s Vineyard, and he couldn’t feel a thing. He wasn’t in pain. He wasn’t in anything.

Tom O’Brien was the first teammate at his side.

“Don’t let anyone touch me,’’ Punter Culleton told O’Brien.

Patrick “Punter’’ Culleton’s life changed forever in that moment a quarter century ago on an idyllic day in an idyllic place. He was paralyzed from the neck down.

Rugby is a unique sport. Those who play it, those who love it, relish the camaraderie. The fierce rivalries that produce a ferociousness on the field melt away off the field, and there is nothing like it in sport when opposing players meet for a drink or a chat after a game.

That, in part, explains what happened after Punter Culleton was paralyzed. The rugby community, and others in Boston, rallied around him and raised money for a trust and helped Punter get settled in a new, adaptive life.

Because of what happened to him, his team, the Boston Irish Wolfhounds, became a more serious, more established touring club, rising to the highest levels of American rugby. It became Punter’s surrogate family.

“We knew we’d be moving on,’’ O’Brien said. “We’d have families. But the club would be constant. All these kids would join the club and Punter would be their guy.’’

And he was. For the last quarter century, Punter Culleton graced the rugby grounds in Canton in his wheelchair, a wise-cracking ambassador of the game. Young players paid him homage, sought his counsel, laughed at his self-deprecating jokes. This was a guy who still loved, passionately, unreservedly, the game that took so much from him.

Punter Culleton didn’t inspire pity as much as perspective.

“I’m still on the right side of the grass,’’ he liked to say.

It was hard to spend time with Punter Culleton and feel sorry for yourself. And he didn’t suffer those who patronized him. He was dealt a bad hand and got on with it. His life didn’t end. It changed. He liked to take a drink. He loved to tell a joke.

Four years ago, Steve Durant, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, lay on the field in Canton, in agony. An opposing player who tried to rip the ball from him instead ripped into his left eye, blinding him. Durant looked up with his good eye and saw Punter looking down at him from his wheelchair, the concern evident.

It was the last rugby game Steve Durant ever played, but in that moment, seeing his great pal Punter watching over him, he found an ineffable solace.

If Punter Culleton never left his friends, they never left him. When his mother died seven years ago, he couldn’t go back to his native Ireland for her funeral. So his friends came to him, cramming into his apartment in Newton to hold a Mass for Maggie Culleton.

All these years later, Punter Culleton is going back to Ireland, for his own funeral. He died on Friday from complications of a surgery that was meant to improve his quality of life.

On Wednesday, the friends of Punter Culleton will gather for a wake at Richie Gormley’s funeral home in West Roxbury, and then they’ll head up Centre Street to Joe Greene’s restaurant, West on Centre. Joe Greene was on that field on Martha’s Vineyard 25 years ago when his friend was hurt.

Some of those friends who were always there — Mossy Walker, Tom Lawlor, Mike Carey, Phil O’Dwyer — will fly back to Ireland with the man who was more than a teammate.

Before he came to America, Punter Culleton was a teacher. And it turns out he was a teacher until the end.

“When he got hurt, in some ways I mourned his death back then,’’ Tom O’Brien said. “But when I think about it, he lived a really great life, no matter what the challenges. He taught us, all of us, about what really matters. What a gift he was.’’

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com