She also posted a video on her site, “The Voyage Less Traveled“.
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When Lauren Jackson married her husband Joel in 2013, she made a simple request on top of the official binding the two were undertaking: “When you can walk, I want you to dance with me”.
As a result of the accident a 15-year-old girl died and Joel spent weeks in a coma after being thrown from the vehicle.
Joel became paralysed in December 2009, when he and five other young people entered a vehicle with a drunk driver who crashed into a telephone pole. Yet his survival and return home from the hospital after 87 days was itself a miracle.
“People don’t live through C1 injuries [the vertebrae cloest to the head]”, Bob McIver, manager of the rehabilitation centre told NBC. “Kids sometimes do. At his age, it’s fatal in matter of seconds”.
Lauren wrote on her blog: ‘If I were a crier, this is where I would have been a hot mess.
Lauren continued to visit and they communicated with equipment that relied on Joel’s eyes to operate a computer.
As Lauren was going through a divorce she began exchanging text messages with Mr Jackson.
This video shows the couple doing the classic first dance shuffle to “I’ll be” by Edwin McCain played over the rehab gym’s stereo.
“I don’t know if you’re like me, but I have photographed (and now videoed) tons of brides and grooms during their first dance. And when you can walk, I want you to dance with me, ‘” she said, according to NBC.
Joel has been undergoing physical therapy at Brooks Rehabilitation in the USA and stunned other staff and patients as he swayed with Lauren using a hoisting device and the support of his own legs.
Lauren wrote a blog about her romantic moment, and said it “took her breath away”.
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“Joel’s quality of life might be different than what [people] would want for themselves, but I’m convinced it’s more rich and joyous than they could imagine. And for the little things, I am grateful”.
