‘I thought she was going to die in the helicopter.’

Farmer Brad vowed he was going to marry Stacie Marmion the very first moment he spotted her on the 2009 season of Farmer Wants A Wife, and he did just that the following year when they exchanged vows in real life.

The couple, who both went on the show for a “laugh” now have three beautiful daughters and own their own thriving beef cattle farm near Gunnedah in north-central NSW, felt incredibly blessed to have found each other.
Brad and Stacie are one of the show’s biggest success couples. They now share three kids together. (Credit: Supplied)

SHOCK COLLAPSE

Life was pretty much perfect until tragedy struck 20 months ago when Stacie, 42, collapsed with a brain aneurysm at 7.30am on a chilly August morning, just before daughter, Darcie, 12, competed in a zone athletics carnival.

“She doesn’t remember any of it, so she doesn’t understand the severity of it,” explains Brad, 45, who leapt into action and did CPR to bring her back to life, before she was flown by helicopter to Sydney for emergency surgery.

“I thought she was going to die in the helicopter. I chartered a plane and flew to Sydney. They operated on her and I was told to prepare myself because she would have no quality of life and wouldn’t be able to walk or talk.”

Miraculously, later that day Stacie woke up, despite being in an induced coma that should have lasted 10 weeks, and asked Brad, “What’s going on?”

“Then she looked at me, and asked, ‘Is that a new shirt?’” he grins.
In 2023, Stacie collapsed from a brain aneurysm. Her fast recovery had doctors calling it nothing short of a “miracle”. (Credit: Supplied)

A TRUE MIRACLE

Stacie’s team of neurosurgeons rushed in to witness the miracle for themselves, admitting they had no idea how she could have woken from her coma.

Then just as they were explaining she wouldn’t be able to stand for another 10 weeks, Brad and the surgeons turned around to find Stacie standing by the side of her bed.

“She took a couple of steps two days after the operation and the surgeons were gobsmacked. They said, ‘It’s not medically possible, it’s a miracle, so someone up there was looking after you!’” Brad says.

With recent rains filling the dams on Iona Downs, the cattle station they bought after tying the knot, and daughters, Darcie, Bobbie, 10, and seven-year-old Frankie filling their home with joy, Brad and Stacie say their life is fantastic.

“It certainly made us reassess a few things. Sometimes you get so caught up on the little things and now we realise life is a blessing. We have each other and three wonderful, healthy kids. We’re pretty lucky. We’re blessed.”
Brad and Stacie found love on the 2009 season of Farmer. (Credit: Andrew Jacob/Are Media)