AUSTIN (KXAN) — In December of 2021, Phillip Engle thought he was just having an off night at the movies.
“I was at the IMAX theater downtown at the Bob Bullock museum with a friend,” he recalled. “Sometime during the course of the movie, I noticed the sound was bothering me. Afterward, I got up and felt like I’d had one beer too many, but I hadn’t had any beers at all.”
What seemed like dizziness quickly turned dangerous. On the drive home, Engle noticed something strange.
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A year after suffering a stroke Phillip Engle went back to his passion of ice climbing mountains after spending time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital (Photo Phillip Engle) -
A year after suffering a stroke Phillip Engle went back to his passion of ice climbing mountains after spending time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital (Photo Phillip Engle) -
A year after suffering a stroke Phillip Engle went back to his passion of ice climbing mountains after spending time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital (Photo Phillip Engle) -
A year after suffering a stroke Phillip Engle went back to his passion of ice climbing mountains after spending time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital (Photo Phillip Engle) -
A year after suffering a stroke Phillip Engle went back to his passion of ice climbing mountains after spending time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital (Photo Phillip Engle) -
Phillip Engle spent time at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital to get back to his passion to climb mountains after suffering a stroke (St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital)
“I thought I needed to get my brakes checked. They’re really grabby,” Engle said. “What was happening is I was pressing too hard on the brake pedal, but didn’t know it.”
Later that evening, his family noticed his speech was slurred. They rushed him to the ER, where doctors discovered he had suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA), often called a “mini-stroke.” Every year, more than 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke, according to the CDC. While in the hospital, Engle experienced a more serious stroke. He spent a week in the ICU before beginning the long road to recovery.
That’s where Dr. Robert Lee, Medical Director of Stroke and Neurological Recovery at St. David’s Rehabilitation Hospital, entered the picture.
“I met Phillip probably three weeks after he had a stroke,” Lee said. “He did have weakness on one side of his body, trouble with speech, and balance impairments like he described. But he was highly motivated. Over the course of about two and a half weeks, we were able to work with him and eventually get him back home.”
For Engle, recovery wasn’t just about walking or driving again; it was about reclaiming his adventurous spirit.
“I had a planned ice climbing trip in January following my stroke, and I obviously had to cancel that,” Engle said. “The therapists at St. David’s asked me what my goal was. Most patients say, ‘I want to drive again’ or ‘I want to walk.’ I told them, ‘I want to ice climb again.’”
Therapists tailored his rehab to mimic the physical demands of climbing, strengthening the muscles and movement patterns he’d need to get back on the ice.
Thirteen months later, Engle was standing at the base of a frozen waterfall in Colorado.
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to climb again,” he said. “But there I was.”
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