Photo of young couple reconnecting after car crash goes viral
TENNESSEE (WPVI) -- As a graphic design student at Lipscomb University, Arika Stovall always hoped her work would get noticed, but this is something she never saw coming.
The 21-year-old and her boyfriend Hunter Hanks were on their way home on New Year's Day.
Neither one of them remembers how it happened. Hunter came to as his pickup truck was seconds away from slamming into a bridge support.
"I don't know how we lived through that," says Arika.
Hunter's Toyota was mangled, and he suffered injuries on his face. However, a different moment entirely captured inside Arika's hospital room is what social media can't stop sharing.
"All I cared about was seeing her and making sure she was OK before me; I didn't care what happened to me as long as she was all right," says Hunter.
A caption was not necessary. Their looks, their eyes, and their neck braces were enough.
"Anyone who looks at that photo can tell something happened and both were making sure we were OK," Hunter says.
So far, the picture has made its way around the world. Neither of the two quite understands how, but the messages they have received from pure strangers shows why.
"I mean, we've gotten hundreds of messages just telling us that our story brought them out of a dark place in their life and changed their life and it changed their life," says Arika.
It was a life-changing moment that apparently has changed many lives, and not just theirs.
