Watch emotional reunion between Alabama nurse and former patient

The spontaneous, emotional reunion of a nurse and his patient in Mobile last week caught the attention of NBC Nightly News, which will air a story about Erika Samuels and Philip Streit tonight. Samuels and Streit both happened to be attending a news conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Feb. 21 for the new Center for Excellence in Healthcare Practice at the University of Mobile. The college was announcing a major expansion of its academic programs and the opening of its new, state-of-the-art health care learning lab.

Samuels, a current student in University of Mobile's School of Nursing, and Streit, a 1996 and 2016 graduate of the school's nursing program, had seen each other in passing during the past semester when Samuels was doing her clinicals at Providence Hospital, where Streit is a nursing administrator.

But Streit didn't realize how he knew Samuels until he saw her speaking at the end of a video shown by President Timothy Smith. When he saw her whole name on the screen, it rang a bell.

"That's my Erika!" he thought.

He approached her and asked her if she'd ever been in a car accident. She looked at him, and the long-ago memories came flooding back of the male nurse who had picked glass out of her hair and held her hand when she was severely injured. She underwent three years of physical therapy after the accident.

Meanwhile, Garrett Hughes, who works in UM's marketing and public relations office, overheard their conversation. He started filming them as Kathy Dean, director of media relations, asked questions.

The result was a moving video that has been viewed through Facebook more than 30,000 times.