A British couple who survived a head-on car crash while on holiday in Iceland became engaged in their hospital beds after nurses reunited them in intensive care.<br /><br />Zak Nelson, 28, and Elliot Griffiths, 26 were rescued from their smashed hire car after a horror collision with another vehicle on April 19 in Revykjavik, Iceland.<br /><br />Nurses wheeled their hospital beds together in the intensive care unit together Elliot popped the question to his partner of one-and-a-half years, Zak.<br /><br />Zak, a First Bus marketing executive, said: "We didn't know whether the other one was alive - the last time we saw each other was in the ambulance.<br /><br />"In his relief, Elliot said 'I never want to be apart from you again, will you marry me?'<br /><br />"It is a reason to us to stay alive and a reason to pull through."<br /><br />Elliot and Zak, who met in Norwich, Norfolk in September 2022, had been planning their holiday to the Iceland for months before they arrived on April 19.<br /><br />The couple had planned to drive around the famous 'Ring Road' - an 820 mile loop of Iceland's most iconic sites.<br /><br />After hiring a car, the pair drove down towards the Blue Lagoon and then headed east to see geysers and a volcanic crater with an ice lake at the bottom of it.<br /><br />On April 19, just a few hours after arriving, Zak was driving along the Ring Road, close to Selfoss, with Elliot in the passenger seat when the crash unfolded.<br /><br />Zak said: "One of the cars coming the other way came across the white line and hit us head on.<br /><br />"It was so quick - there was nothing to be done.<br /><br />"I remember seeing the car, thinking 'we're going to crash', and then trying to steer out of the way."<br /><br />The couple's hire car and a car travelling in the opposite direction collided head-on at a speed Zak estimates was 90 kilometres an hour (55mph). <br /><br />The hire car flipped onto its right hand side, leaving Elliot against the ground and Zak held upright in his seat above thanks to his seatbelt.<br /><br />Zak added: "Elliot told me the first thing I said afterwards was: ‘well there's the deposit gone and that’s the holiday over’.<br /><br />"I truly think the seatbelts saved our lives."<br /><br />Zak was able to take his seatbelt off and crawled to the back of the car, looking up to see the faces of passer-by's who had stopped to help. <br /><br />He crawled out of the boot and believes Elliot was able to follow before they were both rushed to Landspítali University Hospital Hringbraut, in Reykjavik by ambulance.<br /><br />During their brief reunion in intensive care, nurses pushed the couple's hospital beds together so they could comfort each other.<br /><br />Elliot, a blood donation national facilitator, proposed to Zak before being rushed off for emergency surgery to treat abdominal internal bleeding.<br /><br />Zak suffered from severe bruising on his hips, where his seatbelt was on his chest and his smartwatch smashed in the impact, embedding glass into his hands.<br /><br />Elliot had his emergency surgery for internal bleeding mere minutes after he popped the question.
