Kingwood community surprises boy who survived stroke at age 12

KINGWOOD, Texas - The Kingwood community rallied to surprise one of their own on his third anniversary since surviving a childhood stroke at age 12.

Luc Wehby was a lefty growing up, but he had a rare stroke at age 12—called a brain AVM bleed—paralyzing much of his left side.

He re-learned how to walk, but he still can’t use his left hand like he used to.

To show support, friends across the area spent the day using their non-dominant hand to do things like golf, eat, apply makeup, and button a shirt. They surprised him with the videos of themselves doing those activities on his third anniversary since having the stroke.

To top it off the community drove by in a parade of cars past Luc’s home, honking and carrying signs in his honor.

Doctors say the stroke called an AVM bleed happens to people born with a rare tangled group of blood vessels in their brain. Only about 1 in 100,000 people have it, and the rupture can happen at any age. It can be caught and fixed before the stroke happens, said Dr. Jeremiah Johnson at Baylor College of Medicine 

“They’re so rare, it’s not worth the entire world getting an MRI scan of the brain to make sure they don’t have one, but pay attention to symptoms like seizures, really really bad headaches in young people,” said Johnson.

Luc’s parents are hoping to make pre-screening for AVM more available so others don’t have to go through what Luc went through.

“Now he has a story to share to touch other people’s lives—not just AVMs—but just people who go through hardships just to never give up,” said his mom Jacquie Wehby.

Luc has learned how to fish with one hand.

And this fall he’ll finally be able to go to school full time again. The next thing he wants to do is get back out there and hunt.