The Story Behind This Young Couple's Hospital Photo
This photo captures the moment Arika Stovall and her boyfriend, Hunter Hanks, were reunited in a Tennessee hospital hours after a car crash -- a snapshot that has since been shared more than 79,000 times on Facebook.
The two were driving from Jacksonville, Florida, home to Nashville, when their car crashed New Year's Day near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Stovall told ABC News today. Hanks, 21, was driving while Stovall, also 21, slept, she said.
At the hospital, Stovall and Hanks kept asking the doctors and nurses to see each other -- because the last time Hanks saw her she was asleep in the car, and the last time she saw him was when she looked over at him after the crash and he wasn't responding, she explained.
"I just needed to talk to him and make sure he was OK," she said.
The couple, who met at college, has been together for two years.
Provided by Arika Stovall
Once Hanks' CT scans were done he was allowed to walk around, and he came right over to Stovall.
"We had a moment," she said of the reunion captured by the photo, adding that she doesn't remember what was said.
"For me to see him walking into my room was a miracle," she said. "I knew how I was doing and I was fine. But I didn't know he was fine."
Both Stovall and Hanks escaped the crash with minor injuries. They had some stitches, but no broken bones or surgeries, Stovall told ABC News.
"It was just really good to see each other and know that we were OK," she added.
Provided by Arika Stovall
Two days after the crash, Stovall posted the hospital photo to Facebook, and it's since been shared more than 79,000 times.
"When we were both lying in our beds in the ER he found a way to come protect my heart and give me a hug," Stovall wrote in the Facebook post alongside the photo.
"I'm overwhelmed at how little damage was done to Hunter and I in a wreck that should have chopped our bodies in half," she wrote. "I'm in awe of the presence of God in this entire situation. Every part of this experience we went through points directly to Him. The way God helped Hunter to respond exactly the way he did behind the wheel, spinning the truck exactly where it should have to be able to smash into the pillar directly in the middle of me and Hunter so we were both untouched...that doesn't just happen. God doesn't throw protection around like that for no reason. He does it because he's not finished with us."
Provided by Arika Stovall
Stovall told ABC News it was her message -- not the accompanying photo -- that prompted the Facebook post.
"Hunter and I are both very strong in our faiths. So we just took this as opportunity to share that with people," Stovall said to ABC News. "The photo that I posted with it was just a photo. The message is what we cared about."
Hanks told ABC News: "The intentions of our post was not to make it go viral, the intention was originally just to spread the message to friends and family what we just experienced together. I'm amazed that it actually went viral. But it just goes to show that God knows what he's doing in all situations."
The Tennessee State Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the crash.
Stumping for House candidate Rick Saccone, Trump jumpstarts 2020 election
Days before a special election that is being touted symbolically as the first midterm of 2018, President Donald Trump came to Pittsburgh to pledge support for GOP candidate Rick Saccone and tease out his 2020 re-election ambitions.
Saccone is a 60-year-old Air Force veteran and state representative vying for a House seat in the March 13 contest against Conor Lamb, a 33-year-old former U.S. attorney and Marine Corps captain.
In an address that appeared to largely veer off-teleprompter, and that clocked in at 1 hour and 15 minutes, Trump took several minutes to criticize the "fake news" press, then launched his planned 2020 election campaign slogan, "Keep America Great!"
Trump additionally took shots at Oprah Winfrey, claiming "I know her weakness," and called out Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren as potential rivals, receiving swelling applause and drawing boos for Winfrey, Sanders and Warren.
The president finally asked for Pennsylvania to "elect people that are going to back our agenda and fight for our values."
And he claimed he needed the backing from lawmakers like Saccone to prevent "obstructionist" Democrats from blocking his administration's efforts.
"We want to keep the agenda 'Make America Great' going," he said.
Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo
After a brief mention of Saccone at the top of the event, Trump said he hoped to make a congratulatory call on March 13, which is when Pennsylvania voters will go to the polls.
"Do me a favor, get out on Tuesday, vote for Rick Saccone, and we can leave right now," he joked, as he pretended to walk off stage.
He then segued to weightier topics.
In his first public remarks since he accepted a high-stakes meeting with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, Trump said he's hopeful the man he once nicknamed "Rocket Man" and who he said is a "man who's nuked up all over the place," may consider denuclearization.
"Who knows, hey, who knows?" he told the cheering crowd.
AP | Reuters
Trump also touted momentum he claims to have gotten by coming out for new steel tariffs -– a controversial move that angered Republicans on Capitol Hill and reportedly prompted the departure of Trump's own chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, but has played well in in Pennsylvania, the heart of steel country.
"Steel is back!" the president proclaimed.
Reprising a campaign favorite, Trump once again pledged to build a wall along the nation's southern border, noting that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto asked Trump to publicly acknowledge that his country would not fund the wall's construction.
"I said, 'Bye, bye, we're not making a deal,'" said Trump, adding that he reassured Nieto that they could hash out the wall specifics over a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, saying, "Don't worry, it all comes out in the wash."
The president slammed former presidents including: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and then pointed at the throng of press attending the event before verbally jabbing the "sleepy eye son-of-a-bitch" NBC anchor Chuck Todd, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and even Martha Stewart, who he said "failed" on his NBC show, "The Apprentice," while he held the boardroom chair for 14 years and raked in ratings.
At one point, Trump rhetorically asked: "Is there any more fun than at a Trump rally?"
He then mocked how other candidates attempt to be presidential but fail to inspire.
"This is what got us elected," Trump said. "If I came here like a stiff you guys wouldn't like it very much."
A female shouting from the crowd hollered, "You're one of us."
The wide-ranging remarks came three days ahead of the Pennsylvania 18th congressional district's special election, poised to jump-start the 2018 midterm season. With polls showing a race within 5 points in the district, which Trump won by nearly 20 points in 2016, the president's appearance Saturday was considered the closing argument needed to usher Saccone's struggling campaign across the finish line.
Instead, Trump made only brief references to the race and, at one point, was nearly complimentary of Saccone's upstart Democratic challenger, Conor Lamb, calling him handsome and saying he "looks like a nice guy."
"I might like him," Trump said. "And then Rick is going to be very angry at me"
Lamb, a 33-year-old former U.S. assistant attorney and Marine Corps captain is running a decidedly moderate campaign in the deep-red district, staking out positions to the right of some Republican members of Congress by supporting Trump's recent steel and aluminum tariffs and opposing some of the gun control proposals pitched by his fellow Democrats in the wake of last month's school shooting in Florida.
Keith Srakocic/AP
Toward the end of his speech, Trump invited Saccone to the stage and ribbed him about how the crowd and his district is "Trump Country."
"I won this district," Trump said, before calling him special. "Look at all those red hats, Rick."
He also told the crowd the stakes are high in Pennsylvania.
"The whole world is watching," he said. "Go out and vote Tuesday for Rick Saccone ... he will never disappoint you. He's a winner."
When Saccone stepped up to the lectern he shouted, "Do we love our president in western Pennsylvania?"
Then told Trump, "They love you."
Then the candidate, whose voice was weak, said that it was time to end the sale and get him elected.
"As any good businessman knows you work on a deal you work and this a time to close the deal," he said. "Are you going to help me on Tuesday?
"Let's close this deal."
Saccone has been an outspoken, unapologetic Trump supporter who once called himself "Trump before Trump was Trump."
Some attendees Saturday night said they felt that the 45th president's presence in the state was special.
"In the rust belt over here, we struggle," 54-year-old insurance worker Mike Lauro of Butler, Pennsylvania, said. "These communities, they're devastated. For him to come and fight for us, that was big for me."
During the 2016 election, Trump took the 18th Congressional District by 20 points.
But, according to a recent Monmouth University poll the race between Saccone and Lamb is tight, with Saccone edging Lamb 49 percent to 46 percent.
Gene J. Puskar/AP
The younger opponent has raised $3.5 million so far through 2018, tripling Saccone's over $900,000 effort. But Saccone has benefitted from over $10 million in spending by major Republican groups and Super PACs.
Lamb's run in this district marks the first by a Democrat since 2012.
Trump's visit comes after Vice President Mike Pence made appearances in the state on Saccone's behalf, while former Vice President Joe Biden spoke before union workers at the Carpenters Training Center urging voters to send Lamb to D.C.
A win for Lamb, Biden contended would buck a long Republican hold on the district and "set a trend in the nation."
The state is unique in that it was decided back in February by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court redraws the congressional map.
The changes are is especially significant to districts that encompass the Philadelphia suburbs, and the new map creates another competitive district in northeast Pennsylvania near Allentown.
If the move is upheld, it could shift the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans have already challenged the decision in court and Trump said during the rally that he hoped the Supreme Court would intervene.
"You see what they're doing with the congressional districts," he said. "They're doing a number and, hopefully, the United States Supreme Court will take that case because this is horrible what they've done. They had state judges that are Democrats change your voting districts. What kind of stuff is that?"
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