After Jenny Tice got engaged to Robert Nathaniel Eberhart, the bride-to-be honored the surgeon who saved her life twice, Dr. Carlos Esquivel, by asking him to walk her down the aisle at her wedding.
By Leah Degrazia Mar 05, 2025 11:21 PM | Updated 35 minutes ago
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Jenny Tice wanted an important person by her side for her big day.
After her now-husband Robert Nathaniel Eberhart popped the question, the 36-year-old immediately knew who she envisioned walking her down the aisle at their wedding: Dr. Carlos Esquivel, the surgeon who performed two life-saving surgeries on her.
"When Nathan asked me to be his wife, my second thought after saying 'heck yes' was that I wanted my surgeon to walk me down the aisle," Jenny told People in an interview published March 5. "He is my hero."
Indeed, Dr. Esquivel has been an important part of Jenny's life since she was 8 months old, when she was diagnosed with biliary atresia, a rare disorder that affects the bile ducts in the body and can lead to liver damage or other complications, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Because of her condition, which can be fatal in newborns, Jenny needed a liver transplant before the age of 2, and Dr. Esquivel—who is chief of the Division of Transplantation at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health in California—was the one to successfully perform the surgery.
Over three decades later, in 2022, Jenny accidentally reunited with Dr. Esquivel once again when she needed a second life-saving operation to drain her transplanted liver's bile duct—and he remembered her right away.
"Dr. Esquivel walked into the room, and I was nervous because I knew he was the boss of the hospital abdominal transplant program," Jenny remembered. "He looked at me and said, 'Long time, no see.'"
"I had no working memory of ever meeting this man," she continued. "It took me a good minute to put two and two together that he knew me because he was the one who performed my liver transplant back in 1989 in San Francisco."
When it came time to ask the surgeon to walk her down the aisle, Jenny was pleasantly surprised that his response was "an immediate yes." And the real estate lending executive was even more pleased by how natural it was to have Dr. Esquivel lead her to the altar during her nuptials in January.
"I just remember feeling this calm come over me that is hard to describe," she said. "Before I walked down, I remember saying, 'Let's do this.'"
For Jenny—who is currently expecting her first baby with her husband—the gesture was the least she could do for the person who's given her the opportunity to live such a "high-quality life."
"He has walked me from almost death," she said, "to living a full life with the opportunity to fall in love, get married and now soon to be a mother in May."
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