Following Trista Sutter’s life-threatening health scare last week, her husband, season 1 Bachelorette winner Ryan Sutter, decided to speak out about the incident on Tuesday, June 8.
“I’ve had this picture to post for a few days. I just haven’t been sure what to say?” the firefighter wrote on Instagram, alongside a pic of his wife holding a camera. “Like my mind, the photo has sat as a ‘draft.’ In limbo. A bit confused. It was taken one day after my wife, unexpectedly and without a definitive cause, seized violently in front of her family on a shuttle bus full of strangers. In almost 17 years as a firefighter, my experience has trained me to address the immediate emergency.”
Just last week, the original Bachelorette suffered a violent seizure on a bus during a family vacation in Croatia. She was subsequently hospitalized.
“However, little in my 42 years of life prepared me for the confusion and contemplation that remains after the tide of immediacy has settled,” Ryan continued to reflect. “What has helped is the outpouring of kindness received from our friends, family and even those that we’ve never personally met. Without a doubt, you have been instrumental in the healing process and a humbling source of strength for @tristasutter and I. So, with that message, I post this simple picture. It’s my wife – at her best- capturing life as she always has, though now through a more meaningful lens…”
The inaugural franchise lead, who married Ryan after he received her final rose, revealed her hospitalization last Friday. “I ended up in a euphoric white dream that the voices of my husband and daughter pulled me from and I ended up in a Croatian hospital being poked and prodded and wondering ‘why me?’” Trista wrote. “But today, I had to ask, ‘why not me?’ I’m human.’ I have an expiration date.”
She followed up on Monday with a sweet photo with her husband. “My knight in shining armor,” she expressed. “#loveofmylife #grateful.”
My knight in shining armor. ✨ #loveofmylife #grateful
A post shared by Trista Sutter (@tristasutter) on
The couple married in a lavish ceremony produced by ABC in 2003. They now live together in Vail, Colorado, with their two kids, Maxwell, 9, and Blakesley, 8.
In an exclusive interview with The Knot last fall, Ryan thought of ways his life has evolved since he starred on the show. “I’m at this point in my life where every day matters, and I’m thinking about what I’m going to leave behind,” he said. “What’s my legacy going to be? I’m looking for new challenges, new adventures… Thinking all the way out to The Bachelorette when I went out on the limb—and it worked out for me.”
