In 2012, Aimee Copeland lost all four limbs in a zip-lining accident that resulted in a flesh-eating bacterial infection.
The stunning reversal of fortune led the 36-year-old to dramatically rethink her future — which involved an end to a previous relationship.
But the loss was actually her gain — Copeland met the man of her dreams just three years later.
“We were a 95% match on OkCupid,” the Georgia native told People, referring to her now-husband Stephen Mercier.
“We’re extremely compatible. We’re very different, but in ways that really balance each other,” she said, gushing over their “amazing flow.”
She refers to Mercier, 36, as her “built-in brake system.”
“When I’m hitting the gas too hard, I know I’m not going to hit a retaining wall because he will tap the brakes and mind to relax,” she explained.
Mercier, who she married in 2021 in an intimate ceremony at her family’s lake house, said he was “attracted to her powerful mind, her powerful just energy and spirit about her,” adding that “she can kind of make things happen.”
Copeland previously told People how her break-up had ruined her self-confidence after her accident, in which she fell from a makeshift zip line and ended up in the hospital days later.
But Mercier has helped her regain her confidence.
“I have this memory that really stands out of me and Stephen cuddling, and he’s like, ‘I think your body is absolutely perfect,'” said Copeland.
“He really appreciates me. I haven’t had low-self esteem since then. I feel beautiful.”
He has stood by her side over the course of nearly a decade as Copeland became a licensed therapist, earned two masters degrees and launched the Aimee Copeland Foundation, a nonprofit created to help people with disabilities venture into nature, as well as All-Terrain Georgia, which gives off-road wheelchairs to people who want to visit state parks.
“She doesn’t like to present a persona to the world,” said Mercier. “What you hear is pretty much what you get with her. So I found that very refreshing.”
Now, as the lovebirds plan their five-year vow renewal, Copeland is reflecting on her journey with Mercier.
“We learn about ourselves through the mirrors of other people and he reflected all this beauty back to me, which allowed me to regain my sense of self in some ways,” she said.
