Everyone knows love works in mysterious ways; but rarely more mysterious than in the story of Zach and Isabelle.

Partners in life and partners in podcasting, it was 7 years ago that the two Minnesotans were partners of a distinctly less pleasant kind.

At 18, Zach Zarembinski was rushed to Regions Hospital in St. Paul in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury on the high school football field. At 16, Isabelle Richards arrived 9 days later in a coma after a car crash on her way to a grocery store job.

There they lay, shattered, unconscious, and together. Alongside them, their mothers feared the worst, having been told by the medical staff to prepare for the same. But they supported each other.

“I remember she was laying there. She had shards of glass still in her hair and she was unconscious,” Esther Wilzbacher, Richard’s mother, recalled.

“Isabel had to have her right skull piece removed. Zach had to have his left skull piece removed.”

Despite the doctor’s warnings, it wasn’t to be the end of Zach’s journey, and the footballer woke up. Days later when he was ready, he came downstairs for a hospital news conference which was broadcast in Richard’s room, where her father and aunt saw it and suggested they go down to speak with the teen.

Wilzbacher said that Zarembinski told her that her daughter would be fine, and sure enough, she was. After Richards woke up and recovered, the mothers organized a dinner together.

“Said a couple kind words to Isabelle and that was it for six years,” Zarembinski told Boyd Huppert at KARE 11 News’ “Land of 10,000 Stories.”

But 6 years later, the mothers organized a reunion of sorts.

A Facebook friend request, a first date, a year of dates, and then… another hospital news conference.

GREAT LOVE STORIES: 

In Regions Hospital, at the same spot where Zarembinski gave a conference as a teen, the pair of TBI survivors recorded a special episode of their podcast Hope in Healing.

After reading out Joel 2:25 and John 10:10, Zarembinski asked Richards to marry her, and the hospital staff that had ensured they both survived erupted into applause as she said yes.

Partners in comatose, partners podcasting, and now, partners for life. Mysterious ways.

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