By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Managing Editor
Angela Grieb was a happy and healthy young woman until the morning of June 27 changed her life.
She woke up with chest pains. Doctors discovered a blood clot in her heart, which required open-heart surgery. She suffered two strokes, one massive and one minor, and she had to have brain surgery to remove the pressure on her brain.
”They removed part of her skull in the back,” her mother, Vickie Spera, said. “She was hours away from death.”
After spending two weeks in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and two weeks in a rehabilitation center in Lawrenceville, she came home July 27.
She currently attends outpatient therapy where she is relearning basic skills and how to take care of herself again
”She’s able to walk and able to talk but she’s definitely not the way she was,” her mother said.
Her speech, balance and sight have all been affected but she is a fighter on a long road to recovery, her mother said. “I don’t know what the future holds for her,” Ms. Spera said. “Is it reality to think she can go back to what she was doing before this happened?”
Ms. Grieb, who turned 21 while she was in the rehabilitation center, was formerly an all-star cheerleader who had recently become a waitress and was attending Mercer County Community College in pursuit of degree in early childhood education.
Since this ordeal, she has expressed a desire to switch courses and study to work in medical field when she recovers.
The recovery process is not only expected to take long but to cost a lot of money. There are co-pays and medical expenses the family’s insurance does not cover as well as traveling expenses to and from the rehabilitation three times per week.
To help Ms. Grieb and her family, friends have organized a fundraiser on Oct. 15 from 7-11 p.m. at the Hibernian Club of Trenton on Kuser Road in Hamilton Township. The all-you-can-eat and all-you-can drink event will feature two local bands — The Dawgs and Driven. Tickets cost $35 and patrons must be 21 years or older. Dinner will consist of roast beef and potatoes and beer, wine, soda and coffee will be served. All proceeds will go to Ms. Grieb and her family to care for her.
”Angela is a sweetheart,” her aunt Cindy Bucci said. “She’s always been very helpful to anyone who needed her help. She’s always reaching out to people. Even now after all she has been through she has a smile on her face.”
”There are things she can’t do but she’s a hard worker and very determined,” her mother said. “I tell her that with a lot of physical therapy, hopefully after six months it will be like it never happened.”
For more information or for tickets to the fundraiser, contact Alisa Baron at 609-509-2321 or [email protected]. Donations can be mailed to The Angela Grieb Fund in care of Alisa Baron, 82 Whitford Drive, Burlington.

