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Hospital Staff Helps Teens Go To Prom After Car Accident

May 25, 2019

Two Pennsylvania high school students who suffered major injuries from a car crash went to prom together after a little help from the nursing staff.

Sean Bachman and Bela Santiesteban

Gov. Mifflin High School students Sean Bachman and IsaBela Santiesteban, both 17, got into a car crash in February while on their first date to get ice cream.

Bachman was taken to Reading Hospital with broken bones, nine broken ribs, a collapsed left lung and a concussion.

Santiesteban also was transported to Reading Hospital after suffering a minor spinal fracture, a broken rib and a lacerated kidney.

Santiesteban was discharged before Bachman, but she came back to the hospital to visit him every day.

"I was starting to think she really does like me. I got to talking with some of the nurses about how to ask her to the prom," Bachman told The Reading Eagle.

The nurses came up with a great idea.

They photographed an X-ray of Bachman's ribs and put it on a poster board with the words: "I have broken ribs, don't leave me with a broken heart. Will you go to the prom with me?"

When Santiesteban came back to check on her friend, he was holding the poster.

"He and I were both in wheelchairs and he had the poster board in his hands," Santiesteban said. "At first, I was very confused. It took me about 30 seconds before I realized he was asking me to the prom. Honestly, he was the only guy I wanted to go with. I was hoping he would ask."

The hospital staff also pitched in to rent a limo for the couple's big night.

"Jim would come in and tell me he was going to drive us to the prom in a limo," Bachman said of patient care assistant Jim Hancik. "I thought he was kidding, and then they really went and did it. I still have trouble believing it."

"It is so incredibly sweet," Santiesteban said. "I cannot thank them enough for all they did for us, both in the hospital and for our prom."