March 24, 2023 – A Sebring woman in need of emergency hip fracture surgery decided hours before her scheduled wedding, to get married in the emergency room at HCA Florida Highlands Hospital rather than delay her nuptials.
Linda Cuniff and Joe Clark were set to exchange their vows on Wednesday, March 23 at 4:00
p.m. when hours before the ceremony Cuniff fell in her shower injuring her hip. When Cuniff arrived at the emergency department at HCA Florida Highlands Hospital she found out her hip was fractured and would need surgery to repair.
“We had a nice rehearsal dinner the night before I fell” said Cuniff, “the paperwork was all signed except for what the pastor has to sign after the vows. I even had a caterer scheduled for the reception.”
Without wasting any time, the couple contacted their pastor from the Highlands Hospital emergency room and asked if he could marry them over the phone. The pastor, who was celebrating a family member’s birthday at a local restaurant, gladly obliged and the two became man and wife in the Highlands Hospital emergency room.
The couple met on December 18, 2022 while singing in the Christmas cantata at First Baptist Church of Lake Josephine.
“We all stood around the inside of the church, sang the Lord’s Prayer and held hands,” said the groom, Joe Clark, “when one of our church members pulled me aside and said this woman wants to talk to you, and it was history from there. We hit it off like two peas in a pod.”
The team at Highlands Hospital celebrated alongside the newly married couple in Cuniff’s recovery room with their first meal as husband and wife.
“The Highlands staff have been kidding her about ‘falling for me’,” Clark jokingly explained.
