From meeting on Twitter to getting engaged, Jon Hill and Stefanie Harbeson’s romance has been entirely online.

In March, though, a Zoom chat nearly turned deadly when Jon, 37, suffered a stroke on-screen while his fiancée watched helplessly from the other side of the world.

Stefanie, 35, from the United States, tweeted about a nightmare she’d had, and Jon answered from the United Kingdom.

She posted: “The other night, I had a majorly f***** up dream. I want to share but don’t want to tweet it… Anyone want a scary story in their DMs?”

Jon, a Gloucester-based robotics engineer, responded: “I’m game. I’ve got one I can share in return…”

A privAfter exchanging private messages, the two became friends. “Soon, we were messaging all day long,” recalls Stefanie, an instructional designer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Jon was funny, kind and smart and immediately felt like a friend.”

Stefanie hadn’t even heard Jon’s voice while they were over 3,000 miles apart, yet she knew she was falling for him.

She told Jon she had a crush on him in March, and after learning he shared her feelings, they went on their first formal Zoom date in April.

“We’d planned to watch a movie but the conversation flowed so easily, we just talked for six hours,” Stefanie says.

“From then, we were speaking daily. We played board games, took virtual tours of museums and watched films.

“I knew that I was falling in love with Jon, but wanted him to say it first! When he did in early May, I was thrilled, and replied right away that I felt the same.

“Falling in love with a British man who is half a world away? It was like something out of a romance novel.”

The couple couldn’t meet in person for months due to covid limitations. However, in January of this year, Jon travelled to the United States, and Stefanie awaited him impatiently at the airport.

She adds: “We’d even planned our first kiss! We both had to wear masks at the airport so we decided to wait until we were at my home. As our lips touched, it felt like a movie where the rest of the world just fades away.

“Jon stayed for a month and it felt like a dream. It was surreal and amazing to have him there, by my side, after all that time. I even met his parents over Zoom. It was so hard when Jon left, but that just confirmed how strongly we both felt.

“Jon said, ‘I want to be with you for the rest of my life and I want the rest of my life to start as soon as it can.’”

The couple began organizing Stefanie’s vacation to the United Kingdom in June, excited about their future together.

On March 20, they were supposed to chat about the vacation during their Zoom call. “Then, all of the sudden, Jon got this dazed look on his face,” Stefanie says.

“I just felt funny,” Jon recalls. “I noticed my arm was weak and I was slurring.” Hearing Jon’s garbled words, the horrible reality also began to dawn on Stefanie, even before he said: “Babe, I think I’m having a stroke.”

The next few hours were a living nightmare for Stefanie, especially when she realized she couldn’t call an ambulance because she wasn’t in the UK.

“I was terrified,” she says. “I thought I was watching the love of my life die on the other side of a screen and was powerless to do anything about it.

“I tried to stay calm and, as Jon called 999, I phoned his parents, who thankfully were only 15 minutes away.”

Jon insisted on leaving his office to greet the ambulance personnel at the front entrance.

“He stood up and suddenly fell out of view,” Stefanie recalls.

“I heard numerous thuds, a yell and then silence. I thought Jon was dead at the bottom of the stairs – that I’d lost him before we even got to begin our life together.”

Stefanie was distraught for several minutes before she heard Jon’s parents enter the house.

“That’s when I put myself on mute and broke down,” she admits. “The ordeal felt like it had lasted hours but it had only been 30 minutes. It was the longest half-an-hour of my life.”

Doctors were unsure if Jon would make it through the night, so Stefanie awaited word.

“Finally, once he stabilised two days later, I was able to speak to Jon on Zoom,” she says. “Seeing him on screen I was hit by both huge relief and terror.

“He was alive, but still in critical care. All he kept saying was, ‘I love you so much…’ He doesn’t remember that call but I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

Meanwhile, Jon, who had purchased a ring to propose to Stefanie when she came to England, decided he couldn’t wait to ask her to marry him – despite the fact that he was still in hospital.

“Stefanie is absolutely wonderful, smart, caring, kind and creative,” he says. “The stroke made my feelings for her even stronger. I wanted the ring on her finger to make it official.”

Jon had the ring shipped to Pittsburgh and told Stefanie not to open the package until they were on Zoom together. Stefanie sat in front of her computer ten days later, methodically unwrapping the package.

“Jon said, ‘Stefanie, my love, will you make me the happiest man in this hospital? Will you marry me?’” she recalls. “With a big smile on my face and tears in my eyes, I said yes!’

“Being proposed to over Zoom while my beloved is in a hospital bed on the other side of the Atlantic is definitely not the proposal I would’ve imagined, but it’s our story and it’s unique. It felt perfect.

“He was smiling, I was smiling and I wanted so badly to wrap my arms around him and kiss him.

“I’ve learned so much through this experience – that strokes can happen to young people like Jon, but also how unpredictable and precious life can be.”

Jon was able to return to his parents’ house five weeks after being admitted to the hospital.

“Stefanie is my motivation to get better,” he says. “We’ve booked our wedding in Devon in August.”

When Jon is fully recovered, the couple plans to relocate in the United States, but in the meanwhile, they have put up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for Stefanie to see her fiancé in the United Kingdom.

Despite the fact that technology brought them together, the couple intends to keep their wedding traditional.

“We’ll be saying our vows side-by-side!” Stefanie laughs.

Image Credit: Getty

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