Standing in front of Robin, Heather Vannes watched her sister change. The right side of her face began to droop and weakness spread through her arm. The confusion that had seemed unusual suddenly made sense.

The signs were unmistakable.

“I immediately knew my sister was having a major stroke,” Heather Vannes said.

She called 911 and made sure Robin Vannes would be transported to AdventHealth Orlando, the Comprehensive Stroke Center where Heather Vannes had spent years helping build the very system that was now prepared to receive her sister.

Until that point, it seemed like an ordinary afternoon.

The email that didn't make sense

Looking back, Robin Vannes remembers the afternoon in fragments. She recalls feeling overheated and then collapsing near her garage, making her way back crawling into the house, and lying on the bathroom floor because the cool tile felt comforting.

Unable to access her phone, she opened her laptop and emailed her daughter. The message was so incoherent that her daughter immediately knew something was wrong and called Heather Vannes for help.

Robin Vannes says she never considered the possibility that she was having a stroke.

“I didn't know much about stroke symptoms until it happened,” she said.

Years spent chasing minutes

Heather Vannes understands why chasing minutes matters.

When she started her nursing career in the emergency department nearly 20 years ago, stroke care looked very different. Patients often waited for evaluation, imaging, and treatment while valuable time passed.

For patients experiencing an acute ischemic stroke, blood flow to part of the brain is blocked by a clot. It's like a traffic jam in the brain's circulation system. When blood can no longer reach brain tissue, brain cells lose oxygen.

“Every minute counts in stroke care,” Heather Vannes said. “The faster we restore blood flow to the brain, the more brain function we can save.”

Over the years, Heather Vannes helped redesign how AdventHealth Orlando responds to stroke patients, reducing delays and building a coordinated pathway that moved patients more quickly from diagnosis to treatment.

That progress was also supported through a long-standing partnership with Medtronic.

Beginning with early stroke research studies and continuing through education, training, and workflow improvements, the collaboration helped the hospital's stroke program grow.

One of those collaborators was Scott Bowen, territory manager for Medtronic Neurovascular, who has worked alongside AdventHealth Orlando for more than a decade.

“Scott has been part of this journey for years,” Heather Vannes said. “From education and training to helping connect us with ideas and best practices from other programs, those partnerships helped us keep improving.”

Bowen has watched Heather Vannes's commitment firsthand.

“She's passionate,” Bowen said. “Every minute at work revolved around stroke and making the program better, finding ways to shave off a few minutes so patients might have a better outcome.”

Watching the stroke pathway work

By the time Robin Vannes arrived at the hospital, the stroke team was already moving.

She was taken directly to imaging, where scans revealed a large vessel occlusion, a severe stroke caused by a blockage in one of the brain's major arteries.

The care team used Viz.ai to rapidly share imaging across specialists, helping physicians identify the blockage and coordinate treatment.

Within minutes, physicians performed a mechanical thrombectomy, a minimally invasive procedure used to remove a clot and restore blood flow to the brain. Using the Medtronic Solitaire™ X Revascularization Device, the team successfully removed the clot.

The timelines reflected the efficiency Heather Vannes and her colleagues had spent years pursuing.

Robin Vannes reached the procedure room within 21 minutes of arriving at the hospital. The first clot retrieval occurred 49 minutes after arrival.

“It was surreal to watch the system we spent years building activate to save my own sister,” Heather Vannes said.

Getting her sister back

Robin Vannes remembers little about the procedure itself. Her next clear memory is waking up in a hospital room.

Within two days, she was walking again. Rehabilitation progressed faster than she expected.

Today, she has returned to many of the activities she enjoyed before her stroke. She works a few days each week, gardens, attends yoga classes, exercises regularly, and remains fiercely independent.

“I'm more appreciative now,” Robin Vannes said. “The only thing I was concerned about was driving because everything else felt OK and normal.”

For Heather Vannes, that outcome transformed the way she thinks about every patient who enters the stroke program. Before Robin Vannes's stroke, those procedures represented clinical work and performance metrics. Now, they represent families.

“When I think about the 160 thrombectomies we performed last year, I think about 160 families who may have gotten their loved one back,” Heather Vannes said.

Recognizing the signs saves lives

Looking back, both sisters hope their experience encourages others to learn the warning signs of stroke and trust their instincts when something feels wrong.

“That's the big thing,” Robin Vannes said. “Getting awareness out there and being able to recognize it in yourself, your family, your coworkers, your friends, everybody.”

Heather Vannes's advice is just as simple: recognize the signs and call 911. For Robin Vannes, acting quickly made all the difference.

Safety Information

Caution:

Federal (USA) law restricts these devices to sale, distribution, and use by or on order of a physician. Indications, contraindications, warnings and instructions for use can be found in the product labeling supplied with each device or viewed at www.medtronic.com/manuals.

Indications:

1. The Solitaire™ X Revascularization Device is indicated for use to restore blood flow in the neurovasculature by removing thrombus for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke to reduce disability in patients with a persistent, proximal anterior circulation, large vessel occlusion, and smaller core infarcts who have first received intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV t-PA). Endovascular therapy with the device should be started within 6 hours of symptom onset.
2. The Solitaire™ X Revascularization Device is indicated to restore blood flow by removing thrombus from a large intracranial vessel in patients experiencing ischemic stroke within 8 hours of symptom onset. Patients who are ineligible for IV t-PA or who fail IV t-PA therapy are candidates for treatment.
3. The Solitaire™ X Revascularization Device is indicated for use to restore blood flow in the neurovasculature by removing thrombus for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke to reduce disability in patients with a persistent, proximal anterior circulation, large vessel occlusion of the internal carotid artery (ICA) or middle cerebral artery (MCA)-M1 segments with smaller core infarcts (<70 cc by CTA or MRA, <25 cc by MR-DWI). Endovascular therapy with the device should start within 6-16 hours of time last seen well in patients who are ineligible for intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV t-PA) or who fail IV t-PA therapy.

L001-09142026

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