When Kiersten Downs married Thomas Martineau, it was wholeheartedly with accepting the fact that her husband, who was an Air Force veteran, was paralyzed from the chest down from a 2008 motorcycle accident. This made most of his days confined in a wheelchair. But at the wedding ceremony, Downs was not able to find her husband in his seat. She looked around and was shocked to find her husband standing on the dance floor.
It turns out Mantineau had planned to suspend himself in the middle of the dance floor so that he could dance with his new bride on their first night as a couple. Several weeks before the weeding, Martineau approached the lead trainer at the Stay in Step Spinal Cord Injury Rehab Center in Tampa. He asked for help for preparing a surprise for his new wife.
“Because I have a tendency to freak out, I think my first thought was, ‘Holy moly, I hope he doesn’t fall!’” she Downs. “In the corner of my eye I saw our good friend Steve Hill, the lead trainer at Stay In Step Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Center in Tampa, and knew he was the mastermind behind it all.”
The plan worked beautifully, and to the untrained eye, it even looked liked Martineau was actually dancing with his wife for their first dance on the dance floor. The couple swayed together to the cheers and ovation of their closest friends and family. Downs says that she is looking forward to life with her husband, who as always had a thing for surprises.