Major League Baseball

Rays fan gets marriage proposal from man who saved her life

Published May. 12, 2015 3:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

By Jason Rowan

A Tampa Bay Rays fan who miraculously survived being stabbed 32 times by an ex-boyfriend in 2012 received a romantic surprise on Monday when her current boyfriend proposed to her on the mound before the Rays hosted the New York Yankees.

Before performing her first pitch duties, Melissa Dohme was approached by boyfriend Cameron Hill. He presented her with a baseball on which the message, “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” was written. Hill then got down down on bended knee to present Dohme with an engagement ring.

She said yes before the two embraced and kissed.

[see video here]

What makes this already amazing story even more remarkable is how to the two met. Hill was one of the first responders who came to a critically injured Dohme’s assistance as she lay dying in the street outside her home, where her boyfriend had left her for dead after the horrific stabbing attack.

Dohme relived the terrifying ordeal in a powerful first-person narrative she penned for CBS’ “48 Hours.”

Hill said he felt a “sixth sense” about Dohme as she was being airlifted by helicopter to a hospital, where she would spend the next three weeks. It was touch-and-go for Dohme in those first moments, as she flat-lined four times at the hospital. The brutal attack also caused nerve damage that partly paralyzed part of her face.

But Dohme has not only amazingly persevered, she has prospered. Following her remarkable recovery, she reconnected with Hill when he surprised her at church in the fall of 2012. They embraced and made plans to meet again — “I had this feeling about him,” she said — from there, a romance blossomed.

“When I look back on that night, I can’t think of it as all bad anymore because I met Cameron,” she told the Tampa Bay Times in 2013 when recalling that fateful night. “He’s the one I’ve been waiting for. My fairy tale.”

And that fairy tale to which she refers has only been made sweeter courtesy of the happiest of endings playing out in the infield of Tropicana Field, a moment that Dohme and Hill will treasure for the rest of their lives.

More from Sportress of Blogitude: