'The love of my life': Husband awakes from accident thinking it's 1993, proposes to wife again

ByEva Pilgrim, ABCNews
Sunday, November 27, 2022
Husband awakes after crash thinking it's 1993, proposes to wife again
Andrew Mackenzie awoke after a motorcycle accident with memory loss, thinking it's 1993. He proposed to his wife, Kristy, again.

VIRGINIA -- A man who barely survived a motorcycle accident woke up thinking it was 1993.



The love of his life helped him recover, and it only made their bond stronger.



Kristy and Andrew Mackenzie are living a love story. Married 37 years, they cherish time with the family and traveling on the open road.



"On that motorcycle, it just it feels so free," Kristy said. "And I'm, of course, holding on to the love of my life."



For 58-year-old Andrew, all those memories came to a screeching halt after a near-fatal motorcycle accident last June. After t-boning a car that ran a red light, witnesses said Kristy and Andrew were hurled 50 feet across the pavement.



"All I truly wanted to know was, was he okay and where my husband was," Kristy said.



Andrew, unconscious, was airlifted to the hospital for emergency surgery. Their injuries were extensive, including broken bones, internal bleeding, punctured lungs and concussions.



When Andrew woke up three days later, the nightmare wasn't over. Twenty-nine years of his life had disappeared into thin air.



"He thought it was 1993," Kristy said.



He didn't even recognize his own daughters, Lorelai Mentzer and Amanda MacKenzie.



"He just immediately, it was, 'Where's my wife? Where's my wife?' And I think that he thought I was working at the hospital," Lorelai said.



"We could tell him over and over a few things, and then an hour later, it was like repeating everything," Amanda said.



Doctors couldn't tell the family whether Andrew's memory would return.



"One of my first things I remember is Kristy in a wheelchair bedside trying to worry about me taking care of myself," Andrew said.



Things turned around just 24 hours after Kristy convinced the staff to put them in the same room.



"He started coming around asking me things and I was, like, amazed," Kristy said. "There was happy tears, and within 24 hours, he was a new person."



After 11 days in the hospital and extensive rehab, the couple could walk again and in August, took a family beach vacation.



Andrew popped the question for a second time and the couple renewed their vows days later.



"Luckily, she said yes. We'd already been married 37 years or whatever, and so it worked out," Andrew said.



Andrew, who doesn't remember any of the accident, said the wife is the one person who got him through.



"We're trying to take all the positive things from this, maybe even joking a little bit now," Andrew said.



"It was a nightmare. But, I want to live in gratitude. We have each other and that's all that matters," Kristy said.

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