Burr Ridge nurse gets surprise proposal at Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital

LA GRANGE — Dec. 19 had been a busy day for registered nurse Emily Hagen, but then, they typically are.

She had already had a meeting to discuss some of her new duties as a clinical coordinator at Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital. And her supervisors had notified her they would have to send her home at 5 p.m., because her hours were nearly up.

That didn’t seem quite right. In fact, she was scheduled to work until 7 p.m. that evening.

Her supervisors were talking about opening another part of the unit because of a busy patient caseload when a patient light went off.

“I was discharging on the fourth floor, and they told me we might have woken someone up in the sleep lab,” said Hagen, of Burr Ridge.

So she went to answer the call and entered the room.

“We could hear her say, ‘Hi, can I help you?’” said Candice Washilewski, director of Medical Surgical Services with Adventist La Grange.

The man in the room spoke, Washilewski said, and the next thing the staff could hear was Hagen crying.

But these were tears of joy, not sadness. Waiting in the room for her was Hagen’s boyfriend of 6 1/2 years, Curtis Cribben, sitting on a patient bed. On a table before him were a dozen roses and a box.

In the box, a ring.

“It took me a couple seconds to realize what was going on,” Hagen said.

Cribben got down on one knee.

“It was kind of cute because the call light was still going off, and I was still in nurse mode,” Hagen said. “He said some very sweet things, and asked me to marry him.”

Tearfully, Hagen said 'yes.' The newly engaged couple left the room to find Hagen’s family and nurses from throughout the hospital waiting in the hallway, applauding and taking photos.

“Word had traveled,” Washilewski said. “There were some other people that wanted to be there to stand by and congratulate her when she came out of the room. Everybody had to hide around the corner.”

Hagen’s mother, general surgeon Colleen Hagen, had called a few days earlier about bringing Cribben in to surprise her daughter, Washilewski said.

“Apparently they had a conference call on Tuesday, and I was on the floor Tuesday working as well,” Hagen said. “They all did a good job keeping it from me.”

The Dec. 19 proposal was the first Washilewski knew of at Adventist La Grange, she said. She sent Hagen home early that night.

“Curtis and I had dinner and relaxed and got to celebrate together,” Hagen said.