Stroke survivor celebrates recovery, reunites with doctors who saved his life
Just days before World Stroke Day, the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation and UPMC Neurological Institute hosted their first-ever Stroke Survivors Reunion in Pennsylvania. The event brought together dozens of survivors and their families to celebrate resilience and second chances.
Among the attendees was 80-year-old Ed Hermance, who shared his remarkable recovery story.
On May 17, Hermance suffered a stroke while descending the stairs in his home. His wife and daughter quickly recognized the symptoms — drooping face, slurred speech, and loss of movement on his left side — and called 911.
“I’m going down the stairs from up in the bedrooms when it hit. My wife held on to me, and my daughter was down at the other end doing some cleaning, and she recognized I had a stroke,” Hermance said.
Neurologists at UPMC West Shore Hospital discovered a blood clot in the right side of Hermance’s brain. Hermance's doctors told him that an open-heart surgery he had undergone just a month earlier to receive a new aortic valve and pacemaker may have caused the clot.
“I only remember being in the ambulance going to Harrisburg,” Hermance said. "And then they rolled me onto the operating table, and that's what I remember."
Dr. Bart Thaci, a neurosurgeon at UPMC, performed a thrombectomy, a relatively new procedure that uses a catheter up through a patient's wrist or groin to remove blood clots.
“To see a patient later doing great and has no symptoms, and all that could have gone wrong and nothing went wrong,” Thaci said. "It seems like that day didn't happen for him."
Today, Hermance is walking, talking, and even driving again. He plans to attend his granddaughter’s graduation in December, a milestone he thought he may not see.
“Very grateful and thankful for what medicine can do these days. I keep saying, you know, the day I had my stroke, all the pieces to get me to work fell into place,” Hermance said.
Dr. Alexander Rovner, a neurologist who evaluated Hermance post-surgery, says success stories, like Hermance's, are rare but becoming more common.
“The more we spend time on prevention or recognizing the stroke, the easier it would be,” Rovner said. "The earlier the patients are brought to the hospital, the higher the chance neurologists and neurosurgeons have."
UPMC doctors credit Hermance’s family and encourage everyone to act quickly in the event of a stroke, following the “BE FAST” acronym to identify symptoms: Balance, Eyes, Face, Arms, Speech, and Time.
Their swift action allowed Hermance to recover and continue enjoying his favorite activities, including trips to the Finger Lakes and to Michigan State University for Emma's graduation.
“It’s a miracle that I’m able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, to be able to enjoy life again,” Hermance said. “And to go out and see Emma at Michigan — that’s the icing on the cake.”
