ST PAUL, Minn. — During the autumn of 2018, two young individuals found themselves rushed to Regions Hospital under separate, urgent circumstances.

Isabelle Richard, then 16, was en route to her job as a grocery cashier when a car accident resulted in a severe head injury.

Meanwhile, 18-year-old Zach Zarembinski sustained a brain injury while playing football for Hill-Murray High School.

Though they entered the hospital’s emergency department nine days apart, no one could have predicted that these two would one day share a life together.

Earlier this month, seven years after their brain injuries, Zach convinced Isabelle to return to Regions Hospital to record an episode of a podcast they’d started producing.

A few minutes into sharing their stories, Zach told Isabelle he had a question.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.       

A beaming Isabelle responded, “Yes,” setting off a spirited round of applause from a large gathering of the couple’s former caregivers, from Regions and adjacent Gillette Children’s hospitals.

As the couple embraced, family members, tipped by Zach, emerged from hiding to join the hospital lobby celebration.  

“Tears of joy,” Zach’s mom, Tracy Zarembinski, said as she wiped her eyes. Esther Wilzbacher, Isabelle’s mom, offered Tracy a comforting touch.

Each mom played a role in their children coming together.

Isabelle was still in a coma when her mother, sitting at her daughter’s bedside, happened to see on the television a news conference taking place that very moment in the Regions Hospital lobby.

Though Esther didn’t yet know Zach, he was the center of the media’s attention. Days earlier, the high school football player had emerged from his own nine-day coma.

“My husband and my sister said, ‘Let’s go down; they’re going to give us hope,’” Esther recalled.

Minutes later, Esther found herself talking with Zach.

“He was telling us she’ll be okay,” Esther said.

Zach was right. Isabelle emerged from her coma just like he had.

Later, when Zach’s mom heard Isabelle had regained consciousness, she told her son, “We’re going, yeah, we’re going.”

A single photo exists of the day Zach visited Isabelle in her hospital room. Isabelle’s hair was just starting to grow back, her legs remained under a blanket in her hospital bed, but she was smiling as broadly as Zach.

Neither was thinking about dating.

“Said a couple kind words to Isabelle and that was it for six years,” Zach said.

But it wasn’t “it” for the moms.

Tracy and Esther stayed in touch on Facebook. As their children continued their recoveries, a prophetic thought crossed Tracy’s mind.

“I said, ‘Zach, come on, why don’t you invite Isabelle out to lunch?’” Tracy recalled. “But he just wasn’t ready.”

It wasn’t until their families got together for dinner, six years after the brain injuries, that Zach and Isabelle noticed a spark.

“I asked her for her phone number,” Zach said.

A first date followed.    

A year later, when Zach got down on one knee to propose to Isabelle, he did so in the same hospital lobby in which he’d first met her mother.

Beyond being attracted to each other, the couple said there are practical considerations.

During the first stages of their treatment, both Zach and Isabelle had parts of their skulls removed due to brain swelling.

“It’s opposite sides of our brain,” Isabelle said. “So, it’s kind of like we complement each other in that way. Things that I’m bad at, he’s good at.”

Without their mothers’ instincts, Zach and Isabelle might never have met, but neither Esther nor Tracy is taking credit.

“We’re just blessed to have a front row to their miracle,” Esther says.