This local love story has gone viral
A proposal takes a lot of planning, from choosing a ring to deciding when and where it will happen. Baton Rouge resident Carl Haydel’s proposal to girlfriend Rachel Dingle involved a lot of hard work, too–but in the form of occupational therapy sessions.
Last August, Haydel suffered a stroke as a result of a major car accident while living in Minnesota. He says then-girlfriend Dingle and his family were told he would basically be a vegetable. But a team of skilled surgeons, doctors, physical therapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists helped him beat the odds and regain his speech, mobility and independence.
Through it all, Haydel says Dingle stuck by his side, making the idea of proposing to her a no-brainer. He says the couple had talked about it before, but in February, he decided he was ready to take that next step. To prepare, he enlisted help from the Fox Rehabilitation team, which began working with him when he moved back home to Baton Rouge to The Claiborne assisted living facility.
“[Rachel] is a very special lady. I knew I wanted to [propose], and I think it made it more special,” Haydel says.
Occupational therapist Amanda Cable still remembers when Haydel walked into a session smiling about what he referred to as his “secret mission.” From there, she got to work figuring out different exercises that would help Haydel practice getting down on one knee, retrieving a ring box from his bag, holding the box with his affected hand, and opening it.
“Carl came to the Claiborne in November of last year, and he came in in a wheelchair,” Cable says. “We got a lot of news about him, just knowing it was going to be a lot to work with. … We started with him, and then he progressed and just worked so hard with us. The results really speak for themselves. And he just continues to make great progress with us, even now. … We can really do anything that a patient wants to achieve.”
Aside from working on the actions of proposing, Haydel also came up with a speech and typed it out, so that there was no risk of forgetting a word due to excited nerves. Haydel, who knows a bit of Russian, Spanish and German, wanted to try learning how to say “I love you” in Hebrew as part of his speech. When saying the phrase proved challenging, Cable came up with a creative solution: tracing “I love you” in Hebrew with his affected hand. Cable told Haydel this would still feel meaningful as Dingle always encourages him to use his affected hand as much as possible. Haydel’s tracing was framed and gifted to Dingle on the big day.
Haydel also planned out how he was going to show Dingle what he learned in occupational therapy, choosing a date right before Dingle’s birthday and a spot in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art to carry out the finale of his secret mission.
“[The location] was special for Rachel,” Haydel says. “She had told me about it before. I hadn’t seen it, but it was very special to her.”
When prepping, Haydel says he used Google to decide what sculpture to use as his setting. Naturally, he landed on the LOVE sculpture by Robert Indiana. And, of course, a surprised Dingle said “yes.”
Throughout the process of helping Haydel train for his secret mission, Cable was documenting his journey for social media. She says her goal was to show how occupational therapy can look different for everyone, but she didn’t expect it to garner the attention that it did. Millions of views later, Haydel’s secret mission has gone viral.
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“I think occupational therapy is very misunderstood,” Cable says. “A lot of people really think we’re just hand therapists a lot of the time, or we’re just physical therapy, which is not the case at all. So I really wanted to make this special. When he came and told me he wanted to propose, I’m like, ‘This is so incredible,’ because this is everything that occupational therapy is. It’s client-centered. It’s functional. It’s meaningful.”
As for wedding planning, Haydel tells 225 that he and Dingle have their sights set on a winter wedding early next year, and they’ve already picked out a local bakery for their cake. In July, he’ll be moving from The Claiborne to live with Dingle. He has already started working with Cable on skills that will help him move his things on his own, so Dingle doesn’t have to.
What’s the next thing he wants to learn? Haydel says it’s mowing the lawn, simply because he doesn’t want Dingle to have to do it at their home. Talk about setting the bar high.
And don’t worry–Cable shares that she and the team at Fox Rehabilitation have already been promised their invites to the upcoming nuptials.
“His determination to do all of this for her, I just think is awesome,” Cable says. “I’m so happy that they’re going to have a great life together.”
Beyond the views, likes and comments on that now viral video, Haydel hopes that he’s shown other stroke survivors that they, too, can get better with therapy. All it takes is hard work and determination—and a little love helps, too.
