Bling fitting reward for devotion at death's door

Charlotte Wainwright and Mark Ryan plan to marry soon, however the ring contest turns out. Photo / Mark Mitchell

On the brink of death, paralysed and unable to speak, Mark Ryan could only watch as his girlfriend sat and slept on his hospital bed each day.

The 23-year-old from Wellington suffered a huge stroke three years ago while surgeons worked to remove a benign cyst attached to his heart.

For five minutes, he was clinically dead.

When the surgeons managed to revive him, it came at a price.

His family were told that he would never be able to walk or talk again, and would possibly be blind.

Three years on, the former surf lifesaver and New Zealand waterpolo representative is almost back to his old self again, but has no feeling in his right arm and has to sleep most of the time during the day.

He has undergone months of rehabilitation to learn to walk and speak again and is now studying geology at Victoria University.

His greatest goal now is to reward the person who has stuck by him all this time - girlfriend Charlotte Wainwright.

"The fact that she stuck with me from the get-go was pretty incredible," Mr Ryan said.

The couple have entered the Ultimate Engagement Ring competition being run by Michael Hill Jewellers, which is giving thousands of couples in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada the chance to win a 22.25-carat princess-cut diamond ring, set in platinum.

"I want to win this for Char just to show her how much it means that she's stuck by me and has always been supportive," Mr Ryan said.

"I'm just trying to win the bling for her," he laughed.

Ms Wainwright, who was 17 when Mr Ryan had the stroke, admitted that a lot of people had confessed to her that they would never have stayed with their partner had something like that happened to them.

"I couldn't believe that," she said. "For me, there was just no way I was going to leave him, no way.

"I just loved Mark way too much.

"It was heartbreaking to see him like that - extremely hard to look at. But no way, there's no way I was going to just leave."

In the competition, people from around the world vote for their favourite couples, who have to take part in a series of challenges - from uploading funny photos to talking about the day they met - to get votes.

Thousands of couples have entered and their profiles can be seen on the competition website. The top 100 leading couples can be viewed on a separate section.

Ms Wainwright and Mr Ryan said they were planning to marry in the near future, no matter what the result of the competition.

"The only thing stopping us from getting married is that he wants to give me a great wedding," Ms Wainwright said.

"But I'm fine. I'm not going anywhere."

TO VOTE FOR CHARLOTTE AND MARK
You can visit the The Ultimate Engagement Ring website or click here to go directly to their profile