Two coma survivors met as teens in a hospital, then lost touch — until fate stepped in and he got down on one knee
There are tons of movies that follow two young adults who meet at a hospital during a terminal illness and later fall in love. While most of these stories end in tragedy, it isn't the case for Zach Zarembinski and Isabelle Richard. When they were teens, they were admitted to Regions Hospital as they went into a coma due to traumatic brain injury, as per Fox19 Now. After getting discharged, they kept in touch with each other, but destiny had other plans. Six years later, the two lives that intersected in the worst of times are now paving a road together for a lifetime.
While most soulmates stumble upon each other at romantic crossroads, Zach and Isabella met each other in the hospital after they woke up from comas. The story began six years ago when Zach Zarembinski, an 18-year-old then, suffered a traumatic brain injury while making tackles for the Hill-Murray High School football team. The then 16-year-old Isabella Richard had suffered a similar brain injury after meeting with a car accident while on her way to her grocery store job, per KARE11. Both of the Minnesota residents were brought to Regions Hospital just nine days apart. Remembering the traumatic moment, Isabella's mother, Esther Wilzbacher, recalled, "I remember she was laying there. She had shards of glass still in her hair and she was unconscious."
A 2016 study by Kosaku Kinoshita, published in the Journal of Intensive Care, noted that traumatic brain injury can lead to coma through both immediate and secondary damage within the brain. According to the study, severe TBI often causes diffuse axonal injury, a condition in which rapid acceleration or impact leads to widespread shearing of axons and a breakdown in the neural pathways required for consciousness. Both the moms of the teenagers were told that their chances of survival were less. Wilzbacher added that while her daughter had to have her right skull piece removed, Zach's left skull piece had to be removed.
Zach had spent more than a week in a coma when he appeared at a hospital news conference but was unaware that Isabella was still unconscious just a few rooms away. The briefing happened to be playing on the television in her room. "My husband and my sister said, 'Let's go down. They're going to give us hope,'" Wilzbacher recalled. Moments later, Zach found himself standing there, listening as Isabella's mother spoke, who offered reassurance. "He was telling us she'd be OK," Wilzbacher said. Later, when Zach's mother learned that Isabella had finally woken from her coma, the news led them to stay a day more at the hospital, where the two teens would meet for the first time.
Zach recalled exchanging a few kind words with Isabella, and both teens chose to stay in touch on Facebook. Years later, both families went for dinner, when Zach asked for her number, which led to their first date. A year into dating each other, they began their podcast together, where a special episode was recorded at the very place Zach met Isabella's mother. While family and the hospital staff gathered, Zach went on one knee and popped the big question, "Will you marry me," and Isabella, with no second thoughts, said, "Yes!"