Injured, But Engaged!

Felicia flew to Washington State to spend some time with Eric. They were going through the Ape Caves(pitch black caves with rocks to hike and climb and go down) with Eric's friend.

After a little ways through the cave Felicia stepped on a rock sending excruciating pain through the center of her foot. It was also caught between rocks, twisting her foot even more as she fell down.

Felicia tried to assure Eric that she would be fine despite the pain. But after awhile she realized that it was much more serious than she had originally thought and could not even move. The panic set in, and she began crying uncontrollably.

Luckily, Eric's friend was trained as a military medic and immediately started searching for wood around the cave. After a few minutes, he came back with semi-petrified wood, took a knife Eric had in his survival backpack, and cut it in half with a rock as a hammer, and he made Felicia a splint!

Eric, being the overprepared man he is, had parachute rope to tie it on with. As they were tying the wood to Felicia's foot, Eric said "Here, hold this," and handed Felicia an engagement ring! He proposed to her right there while she was already crying from pain from her foot, and she started crying harder. His friend thought she was about to hit him from asking at a terrible time, but Felicia said "No, these are happy tears!!".

Eric later told Felicia that he was going to propose after they finished the hike through the Ape Caves but they had to turn back because Felicia's foot hurt too much. The new engagement combined with his friend's conversation gave Felicia the distraction she needed to walk on her ankle as well as crawl and slide up and down the rocks and boulders. Eric's friend was trying to distract Felicia from her pain and helpless claustrophobia by asking her random questions like what her job used to be like, how her cat's personality was like, and her favorite color and animal. All the while Eric went behind Felicia making sure she had light to see where to put her weight. After two grueling hours, they finally made it out of the cave.

While at the hospital, they found out that nothing was broken; just severely sprained. Eric had Felicia's return flight extended from June 16th to July 6th to not only give her foot some time to heal, but to give the newly engaged couple more time to spend together.

What a story to tell their children and grandchilden!