Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
AMERICAN FORK -- People often love to share how they met their spouse. This is the story of a newlywed couple who met, of all places, in the hospital.
No one ever looks forward to surgery, but it was in this same-day surgical unit in an American Fork hospital that this love story began. If you ask Mason and Krista Hardman how they met, you won't hear about a romantic moment or even love at first sight. They'll start out by using words like "anesthesia" and "recovery room."
After surgery, Mason asked if Krista was single and told her that she was beautiful. She brushed him off, saying that he was "on drugs," still under the influence of the anesthesia.
"Krista was my recovery nurse, and then waking up I saw her," said Mason Hardman. After surgery, Mason asked if Krista was single and told her that she was beautiful. She brushed him off, saying that he was "on drugs," still under the influence of the anesthesia.
As Mason left the hospital that day in September 2010, he promised Krista he would someday ask her out. She didn't, at the time, think he was being serious.
Two weeks later, a secretary at the nurse's station called to tell Krista that Mason had returned.
"She said he came to get your phone number and he left his number. So she gave me his phone number and I gave him a call, and the rest is history," Krista said.
Even at the end of their courtship, their initial meeting had meaning for them.
"I wanted to propose in the same way that we met and so I talked to some of the nurses to get them in on it," Mason said.
He set things up so that he could appear to be a patient, the same as he was when the first met. Only this time, things were a slightly different.
"I opened the recovery room door and there were red rose petals on the floor," Krista said.
Mason was lying on a hospital bed, clothed in a hospital gown, even going so far as to have an IV put in so that he looked like a real patient.
"And he got out of bed and got on one knee and proposed," Krista said.
Ten weeks later, the wedding bells rang for Mason and Krista.
"It's kind of funny how it all happens out of nowhere," Mason said,
Now the patient and the nurse who fell in love are together on their way to a "happily ever after" ending of a love story that began in same-day surgery: They will celebrate their first anniversary on March 19.
"It has been a good year,"Krista said.
