Couple that met in the hospital after waking up from comas as teens get engaged

Couple that met in the hospital after waking up from comas as teens get engaged

Austin, Texas — February 22, 2026
By Sherry Phipps

Two Minnesota teenagers who once lay in neighboring hospital rooms, each fighting for life after traumatic brain injuries and medically induced comas, have returned to the same hospital years later—this time to get engaged in front of the families and clinicians who helped save them. What began as a moment of fragile hope for two families in 2018 at Regions Hospital in Saint Paul has become an improbable love story rooted in survival, disability, and the quiet persistence of community.

A Near-Death Beginning

In the fall of 2018, 18-year-old high school football player Zach Zarembinski collapsed on the sidelines with a brain bleed during a game for Hill-Murray High School and was rushed by ambulance to Regions Hospital. Doctors placed him in a medically induced coma, and his mother, Tracy, was warned he might not survive.​

Just nine days later, 16-year-old Isabelle Richard was on her way to her grocery store job when a serious car crash left her with a severe head injury and shards of glass in her hair, also sending her to Regions Hospital’s intensive care unit. She, too, was placed in a medically induced coma, and clinicians warned her family that she might never wake up or speak again.​

Hope Shared in the ICU

While Isabelle remained unconscious, the hospital held a news conference about Zach’s recovery, and his interview played on the television in her ICU room. Isabelle’s mother, Esther, walked down to the lobby to meet the teen from the screen, who told her—before he had even met Isabelle—that her daughter was going to be okay.​

That brief encounter planted a thread of connection between the two families at a time when both were being told to brace for the worst. When Isabelle eventually emerged from her coma, Esther arranged for Zach to visit her room, where the teens exchanged a few kind words and posed for a photo together. After that, life pulled them apart again, but their mothers stayed loosely in touch through Facebook as both young people continued long recoveries from traumatic brain injury.​

From Trauma Survivors to Partners

For six years, Zach and Isabelle lived separate lives, each adapting to the long tail of brain injury and the altered futures that can follow such trauma. Behind the scenes, Tracy gently encouraged her son to reconnect, suggesting that he invite Isabelle to lunch as he grew older and moved further from the crisis years.

Eventually, the families arranged a shared dinner. That evening, the teens—no longer patients but young adults bonded by a rare shared history—“hit it off,” as they later recalled. Zach asked Isabelle for her phone number, which led to a first date and, over time, a committed relationship grounded in mutual understanding of what it means to live after brain trauma.

Both have spoken publicly about the visible and invisible scars of their injuries, including surgeries in which different parts of their skulls were removed to relieve pressure—surgeries they now say “complement” one another in a kind of darkly tender metaphor for how their lives fit together. Their story has circulated widely on regional and national outlets as an example of resilience, disability, and community support converging into an unexpected future.

An Emotional Return to Regions Hospital

In late 2025, Zach and Isabelle returned to Regions Hospital, initially to record an episode of their “Hope in Healing Podcast,” which focuses on recovery stories and life after medical crisis. What Isabelle did not know was that Zach had coordinated with hospital staff and both families to turn the visit into a surprise proposal.​

In a hallway just around the corner from waiting caregivers and relatives, Zach dropped to one knee and asked, “Will you marry me?” as cameras rolled and clinicians looked on. Isabelle said yes through tears, and the couple embraced amid applause from the very people who had once fought simply to keep them alive.​

Hospital staff and family members later described the engagement as a “full-circle” moment that transformed one of the darkest chapters of their lives into a new beginning. Esther called the chance to witness the proposal “a front-row seat to their miracle,” while Tracy spoke of “tears of joy” and gratitude that both young adults had not only survived but found partnership.​

Love, Disability, and Life After Crisis

Although headlines often focus on the romance, Zach and Isabelle’s story also highlights the long-term realities of surviving traumatic brain injury as teenagers. Both endured intensive rehabilitation, major surgeries, and months of uncertainty about cognitive and functional recovery, and both families navigated complex medical systems while trying to secure the right care and support.​

Their engagement at Regions Hospital underscores how critical hospital environments, communication, and family inclusion can be in shaping not just survival, but the quality of life that follows. It also illustrates how disabled people’s stories are often more than narratives of overcoming: in this case, their shared disabilities and hospital experience form the foundation of a relationship in which both partners understand the ongoing nature of healing.​

By returning to the same hallways where doctors once warned their parents to prepare for the worst, Zach and Isabelle reframed a place associated with fear into a space for celebration, consent, and mutual choice. For many families who have watched their journey, the couple’s engagement stands as a reminder that even in systems built around crisis, there can be room for connection, agency, and unexpected futures.

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