Arika Stovall Hunter Hanks, Post Crash Photo

'I didn't care what happened to me as long as she was alright': Touching moment boyfriend reunites with his girlfriend in hospital after surviving New Year's Day crash - A touching photo showing a couple reuniting after they were involved in a car crash they said nearly killed them has been shared on Facebook warming the hearts of thousands of people.

Arika Stovall and Hunter Hanks, both 21, were headed back home to Nashville, Tennessee from Jacksonville, Florida on New Year's Day when their pickup truck veered off the road and slammed into a bridge support.

The 'miracle' couple who suffered from concussions were captured hours after the crash when they reunited in hospital, both wearing neck braces, as they stared adoringly into one another's eyes.

'When we were both lying in our beds in the ER he found a way to come protect my heart and give me a hug,' Stovall, wrote of her boyfriend in a Facebook post alongside the photo.

'Lord knows I needed that just as much as my safety. I'm overwhelmed at how little damage was done to Hunter and I in a wreck that should have chopped our bodies in half.

'I'm in awe of the presence of God in this entire situation.'

In the sweet snap taken inside Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Hanks is shown with a bandaged forehead as he leans over Stovall while she lies in her hospital bed looking up at him smiling.

'It was unbelievable when they saw each other,' Savannah Gaines, a close friend of the couple who snapped the touching moment told CNN.

'I know them so well, and they love each other so much. They were completely blessed to walk away from that.'

As he recalled the viral photo, Hanks, a college baseball player, said all he was concerned about was making sure his girlfriend was okay.

'I didn't care what happened to me as long as she was alright,' he told WTVF.

Stovall, a graphic design student at Lipscomb University, posted the picture to her Facebook on Sunday which has since been shared more than 75,000 times.

She wrote on Facebook about how it only took three seconds for the car crash to happen and now the couple is unsure how they even made it out alive, referencing the power of love and God, according to CNN.

'I don't know how we lived through that,' she told WTVF.

Hanks said they were traveling between 70 and 75mph in his Toyota Tundra when they hit the concrete pillar on an interstate in Murfreesboro last Friday night.

Photos following the crash show his badly mangled truck, nearly unrecognizable.

In her post detailing the frightening ordeal last week, Stovall wrote that the car crashed into the pillar with smashing directly in the middle of them leaving them both untouched.

'The moment we hit and I realized I was conscious I realized that is what was happening to me,' she wrote.

'While out of breath and trying to move my legs i was screaming..panicked...yelling for Hunter to just say something. I needed to know he was okay.

'Looking to the drivers seat all I saw was his head through the windshield, a face full of blood, and a body that wasn't moving.'

Stovall then details of how she saw her 'guardian angel' described as a man bright with a big white beard who told her than ambulance was on its way.

'I jumped out of the car, ran over to Hunters side and just looked at this man,' she wrote.

'From that moment until Hunter was cut & lifted out of the truck I believe with my whole heart that looking at this man helped me to literally believe in that moment that Hunter was next to me on the road.

'I don't know if it was a hallucination or me unconsciously dreaming or a glimpse of heaven...but all I knew in that moment was that Hunter was safe with me.

'This man..looking at him for a short moment..helped me not witness Hunter being peeled out of the truck. I believe if I saw that I would have had a heart attack.'

She said after asking the man when the ambulance was coming he said in just a second before the man walked away and she had a flashlight in her face.


'Here is the miracle part: no broken bones, concussions that lasted not even 24 hours, no internal damage, and just a few stitches in my knee and hunters face,' Stovall wrote.

'Only that after an accident that paramedics wonder how we didn't die instantly and a truck that looks like it's been through a tree grinder.
'We're both already released from the hospital not even 48 hours after entering.

All of our belongings in perfect condition besides a few things here and there..and the only thing left behind at the crash scene is Hunters bible open, with a page marked with scripture telling us to not be afraid; Jesus is with us. I am amazed.'

Stovall wrote that the 'power of prayer is real' and how grateful and fortunate they both are for the prayers that have been sent their way.
'Without a doubt it's a miracle we're alive, but more than that it's simply Gods plan for us,' she wrote.

'We're so grateful for this wreck and all it will do in our lives. We are blessed to be okay. And so in love with the amazing God we serve.'
Following the crash, the couple told WTVF they have received hundreds of messages with people telling them their story brought them out of a dark place and has changed their lives.

The couple are planning to return to school on Monday, according to CNN.