Starting over
Couple to re-wed after wife’s amnesia struggle
ANGELA Sartin-Hartung couldn’t remember her husband, Jeff Hartung, when she woke from a medically induced coma in a Manhattan hospital in 2013.
The Oklahoma couple essentially had to start over again, fall back in love and rebuild their life together.
Almost five years later, they plan to renew their vows at a ceremony in Central Park next month.
“I’m getting excited. My memory is still completely gone, and it takes me a lot to remember to get excited about things, but I have pictures all over the house of Jeff and me, and he’s just such an awesome man. It makes me cry,” Sartin-Hartung told the Daily News.
“It’s about creating new memories,” she said. “I realize I had an accident in New York City that was severe, but I want people to know that we can go on in life. We can go on, even if our memory is wiped out.”
Sartin-Hartung, 55, suffered a traumatic brain injury when she stepped into a crosswalk at York Ave. and 72nd St. on the Upper East Side on Oct. 25, 2013, and was hit by an NYPD traffic enforcement vehicle.
More than a decade was scrubbed from her memory in the incident that landed her in the ICU at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell for a month.
When she first opened her eyes, she thought she was still married to her first husband, who died in 1998.
She had no recollection of her 2000 wedding to Hartung and thought her daughter was still a toddler. In reality, the daughter was a teenager studying at Manhattan’s SLK Ballet School.
“Every single day is about making new memories now. I’m very fortunate because I get to do that again. My life wasn’t taken.”
An ambulance driver saw Sartin-Hartung get hit. “He was there within seconds, had me breathing again and at Cornell within minutes,” Sartin-Hartung said.
The guests expected at the June 16 ceremony include Dr. John Sherman, a plastic surgeon at Weill Cornell, and Dr. Kirk Lercher, a rehabilitation specialist at Mount Sinai, where SartinHartung spent a month after she left the ICU.
“We’ve worked so hard all this time, to get to the point with this marker. We’re going to turn the corner and start this new phase. The wedding is definitely that marker, then we’re going on vacation,” Jeff Hartung said.
“Angela doesn’t like calling it a ‘wedding’ or a ‘honeymoon,’ because we're already married. She’s very technical.”
Beyond medical challenges, the couple also went through a lengthy legal battle with the city before reaching a $2 million settlement.
The city claimed Sartin-Hartung was crossing against a light when she was hit. A lawyer for the couple said the NYPD vehicle didn’t have its lights on.
Sartin-Hartung told The News it would be totally out of character for her to cross against a light, but she couldn’t remember the actual incident.
Hartung said he hopes the couple’s experience can help and inspire others.
He said it takes effort to rebuild critical bonds. Hartung and his wife work on that problem by taking Pilates classes together and going on plenty of walks.
“I think it’s such an untold story, the impact that (traumatic brain injuries) can have on people — their personalities, relationships, family. All the challenges,” he said.
“And people don’t always get to see all the grace and mercy and love that can come out of tragedy,” he said. “We want to show the other things that come out of a tragedy as well.”
ndillon@nydailynews.com