'Amelia Bedelia' Author Saved by Rutgers Stroke Center Team

Rutgers - In May of 2014, Herman Parish woke up one morning with “the worst headache I ever had,” he told Rutgers Today.

But, he had work to do. After all, Parish is the author of the Amelia Bedelia children's book series, a timeless classic actually started by his aunt, the late Peggy Parish, in 1963. But when Parish stood up from bed, he was overcome by unbearable pain. He collapsed, unconscious and not breathing. Luckily, his wife, Rosemary, a trained nurse, heard him hit the floor and immediately called 911. Parish was rushed to the hospital closest to his home, University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro.

He had suffered a life-threatening hemorrhagic stroke and a CT scan revealed blood was pouring into his brain. A “thunderclap” headache, one that ranks 11 on a scale of one to 10, is often the first symptom of this type of stroke. Doctors at Princeton knew he would need more advanced care, so from Princeton he was taken to the Comprehensive Stroke Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, only 20 minutes up Rt. 1.

By the time Parish arrived at Rutgers, he was in a coma and his brain was beginning to shut down. Read more on Rutgers Today about how doctors at Rutgers/Robert Wood Johnson worked over an incredible 17 days to save Parish. Now that he is fully recovered, the famous children's book author dedicated his latest book, Amelia Bedelia Cleans Up, to the Rutgers brain surgeons who saved his life, Dr. Gaurav Gupta and Dr. Sudipta Roychowdhury.