The Idaho couple had wanted to tie the knot for about two years now, but life kept getting in the way.
Curt Harkins and his fiancé, Renee Hall, had initially planned to get married at a courthouse, but Harkins’ daughter found out and “threw a fit,” he joked from his hospital room at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray. She wanted a bigger celebration, but Harkins and Hall were busy, and that year passed without a ceremony.
Then this year, that daughter got married and had twins. Then Curt Harkins got sick in late September.
Fast forward to Monday — three days before Harkins is to undergo a surgery to install a pump that’ll keep his heart beating until he can get a transplant — the couple realized time was running out. The couple asked Harkins’ nurse, Jake, what it would take to have a wedding right there.
“And then, by golly, he showed up with paperwork,” Harkins said.
The couple, both donning hospital gowns since Harkins couldn’t change into a suit, got married Christmas morning in Harkins’ room at the heart institute, in front of some hospital staff as witnesses and a judge, who performed the ceremony.
(Photo courtesy of Intermountain Healthcare) Curt Harkins, right, marries Renee' Hall at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2019. Harkins has been hospitalized since October with heart failure but wanted to tie the knot with his fiance before surgery on Thursday. Caregivers at Intermountain Medical Center helped find a district judge, got them the paperwork, made sure the doctors signed off on it, and decorated the room with Christmas garlands and flowers. Then early this morning, Hall and Harkins put on their hospital gowns and finally tied the knot.
Harkins said he and Hall didn’t necessarily plan for a Christmas wedding. It just worked out that way, but he thought a Christmas wedding would be neat — and the date has its perks.
“For an old man like me," he said, “it’s an easy anniversary to remember.”
If all goes well Thursday morning, Harkins said he and Hall should be able to return home to Idaho in a few months. There, they can wait until a heart donation becomes available. But it’s a major 8-hour surgery. A doctor will split his chest open and put in a pump to takeover functions his heart no longer does.
“It’s got me a little concerned and, you know,” Harkins said, “scared.”
But for now, the couple has each other, and Hall said it “feels great." They’ll bask in the bliss of their matrimony until Harkins is wheeled away to surgery.
Editor’s note: Tribune reporter Paighten Harkins and Curt Harkins are not related.
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