'I Dos' in the ICU: Judge Performs Bittersweet Wedding
Two judges, a court supervisor, a physician assistant who plans weddings on the side and a host of nurses made nuptials happen for a man in the ICU and his bride.
June 26, 2019 at 06:50 PM
3 minute read
Judge Gary Jackson of the Atlanta Municipal Court has performed weddings on top of Stone Mountain, on a Ferris wheel and in a hot air balloon—but the rites he administered Monday will be particularly memorable.
Jackson had to don a protective gown and gloves to preside over a wedding in the intensive care unit at Northside Hospital for Robert Devore Scales and Sandra Louise Goolsby Sowell.
Sowell said by telephone Wednesday that she'd worn a wedding ring for 20 years, but she and Scales, 77, had never tied the knot officially. Scales suffers from what Sowell said were terminal heart and lung problems.
Last weekend, as discussion turned to whether he should be moved to hospice care, he suggested they get married. “He wanted to make sure things were easier on me” if he died, as she would have fewer complications with probate court, Sowell said by telephone Wednesday.
Gwen Rayford, a Northside critical care physician assistant, said she overheard a discussion about a patient who wanted to get married last Saturday. “I had to jump in,” she said, because she also runs a wedding planning business—a side gig for happy occasions she started to complement the sadness that comes in the ICU.
She said she started to research the process and found Jackson's name and phone number on a website for the Fulton County Probate Court. To her surprise, he answered the phone late Saturday afternoon and immediately said he'd make the marriage happen.
“The call absolutely tugged at my heartstrings,” said Jackson, who in starting to work on the details realized that, because the couple lived in DeKalb County, he'd need help from Judge Bedelia Hargrove, the chief probate judge there. After locating her number through friends in the probate court arena, he found her at a family reunion in North Carolina.
Hargrove quickly authorized Magda Mena, the court supervisor, to go to Northside Hospital on Monday to have both bride and groom sign the necessary forms for the marriage license. Mena said she has collected off-site signatures a few times a year in her two decades working for the probate court. ”We do it sometimes,” she noted.
“Judge Hargrove and Ms. Mena,” Jackson said, “really went out of their way” for the couple.
Jackson drove Sowell between the courthouse and the hospital twice, and when they arrived for the ceremony, nurses had decorated Scales' bed with flowers, arranged for a bridal gown for Sowell and a bow-tie and boutonniere for Scales.
Jackson said he likes to do weddings because they are the rare matter in which everyone leaves happy. He said the Sowell-Scales nuptials were “the most satisfying.”
Sowell said of her husband after the wedding: “He was happy.”
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