Their first date ended in the emergency room. Now in their 90s, couple volunteers together at same hospital.

Jimmy, a former race car driver, had invited Dottie to see him compete. Then a crash happened and the pair found themselves at Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  

“I hit the steering wheel and broke my nose,” Jimmy recalled of the moments after he was hit by another car.  

The Dillard’s eventually fell in love and got married. Nearly seven decades later, they continue returning to the hospital where their love story began.  

“That’s right,” Jimmy said. “We liked it here,” he added with a laugh.  

The couple volunteers every Wednesday at the hospital escorting patients to appointments.  

“We love it here,” Dottie said. “We did it so long it’s like home.”  

Together, the Dillard’s have spent more than 13,000 hours volunteering at Mary Washington.  

Both in their 90s, Jimmy and Dottie plan to continue volunteering at the hospital for as long as they can. They are often older than the patients they escort.  

“They’re a tag team,” Candace Trull, the hospital’s volunteer coordinator, said. “You can’t have one without the other.”    

Representative Eugene Vindman recently honored the couple with a Congressional recognition of their efforts.

“It’s an old saying if you don’t use, it you’ll lose it,” Dottie said. “So we’re using it.”  

This story is part of WUSA9’s ongoing series “The Heart of It”, which highlights inspiring and emotional stories from the DMV and beyond. If you have a story suggestion for Sean Martinelli, you can email TheHeartOfIt@wusa9.com