Nearly four years after paralyzing accident, bride walks down the aisle

It looks like a wedding like any other.

There’s a scenic venue, a gathering of family and friends, and one soon-to-be spouse waiting for his partner to walk down the aisle.

But this partner, and this walk, represent a triumph – and the climax of a chapter that began four years ago and five miles down the road.

“There for a while,” Ally Poole recalls, “everything was out of whack.”

Ally had been dating Amos Grizzard for six months. She was an aspiring nurse, driving her dog Lily to the vet on a winding stretch in Carroll County. “All I remember,” she says, “is seeing a hay truck coming at me, head-on, in my lane.”

Ally swerved. Her car flipped. She flew out and landed yards away.

“I took my last breath,” she recalls. “They had to do compressions and bring me back in the helicopter.”

Ally was life-flighted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta. Her next memories came three weeks later at the Shepherd Center. “All of my spine,” she says, “was just shattered to pieces. Even on the X-ray today, you can see where they couldn’t correct a lot of it.”

“She wrote me a note,” recalls her mother, Lisa Pope, and said, ‘My nursing career is over.’ And I said, ‘No, it’s not. Why would you say that?’ And she said, ‘Because I can’t feel my legs.’”

Doctors told Ally she had a window: up to five years to recover as much as possible. She seized it. She maxed out on physical therapy. She turned her Instagram account into inspiration art. Thirteen-thousand followers saw photos of Ally pushing back … and Ally with her love. Amos proposed two years later and had Lily carry the ring.

And Ally? “The night that we got engaged, I texted my therapist with a picture and said, ‘Are you ready to train me to walk down the aisle?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’”

The walk is 50 feet. For Ally, every step is a fight, with her father holding her on one side and her stepfather holding her on the other.

But she makes it. She reaches a destination never more cherished: her partner’s arms. Then she says – and Amos repeats – the words that are common to weddings like any other:

“I promise to love you and cherish you through whatever life may bring us.”

They’ve already proven it.

Watch Matt Pearl's story above. And if you know of a great untold story of Metro Atlanta, e-mail Matt at [email protected].