Widowed Hospital Volunteers Fall in Love in Their 70s: 'It's Got to Be the Man Upstairs'

HCA Healthcare's Trident Medical Center

Two widowers have found new love after meeting at a party for hospital volunteers last year.

Ron Hill and Pat LoPresti both began volunteering at HCA Healthcare's Trident Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina, after losing their spouses, they told CBS News.

Hill, 73, began volunteering at the hospital on Wednesday, while LoPresti visited on Thursdays. Because they were both furloughed during the first year of the pandemic, the two wouldn't cross paths until March 2021, when the hospital invited volunteers back and held a welcome party.

After the party, the two became further acquainted when their volunteering shifts were moved to Mondays.

"We discovered we both got transferred to Mondays and neither of us worked on a Monday before," 78-year-old LoPresti told CBS News. "You worked Monday morning and I worked Monday afternoon and we would both have lunch together."

While speaking to Trident Medical Center, LoPresti said they formed a bond over their many lunches together.

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HCA Healthcare's Trident Medical Center

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"Coincidentally, we had the same lunchtime, LoPresti told the hospital, according to KTVX. "We had a chance to get to know each other and learned a lot about each other. We found out we had like interests and we were like-minded people. And, it just created a spark between us."

The two now believe it was fate that brought them together.

"It's got to be the man upstairs who put us together for a reason," Hill said while speaking with CBS News.

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Before meeting each other, the couple said they both were ready to live the rest of their lives alone.

"We've talked about this and neither one of us thought about a future other than being alone the rest of our lives and enjoying our family and our volunteerism and friends. And, when this happened it was a surprise," LoPresti told the hospital, KTVX reported.

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Hill recently popped the question to LoPresti at Middleton Place Gardens in Charleston, a hospital spokesperson told PEOPLE.

Now the two are preparing for their wedding in October.

"We never gave [dating] a thought," LoPresti CBS News. "Here we were, both widows, thinking we were going to be OK if we were alone for the rest of our lives. We had friends, we had family, we had fellow volunteers. We were going to be OK."

"And then — surprise," she added, "we bumped into each other."