Man returns home after contracting EEE in August 2019, spending 19 days in coma

PLYMOUTH COUNTY, Mass. — A man in his sixties returned home to Plymouth County after spending months battling EEE. Robert Hiller was the first person in the state to contract the mosquito-borne illness in 2019.

He spent 19 days in a coma and his family didn’t know if he’d survive.

“I wasn’t sure that my husband would ever come home,” said Sandi Hiller.

Her husband, Robert Hiller, wasn’t supposed to be at home recovering seven months after contracting EEE.

“I had a headache at night and then I went to bed,” he recalled. “Monday morning, I couldn’t get out of bed.”

It was early August when Hiller contracted EEE.

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“The doctors at Brigham [and Women’s Hospital] called my wife in and said, ‘you better get all the family together because we don’t think he’s going to make it,’” Robert Hiller said.

The EEE virus immobilizes the body. A third of people diagnosed with EEE die, and those that do survive have long-lasting effects like brain damage. Still, knowing all of that, the Hiller family never gave up hope.

“He was on life-support, tracheostomy, a feeding tube [and] wasn’t able to breathe on his own,” Sandi said.

While in a coma, Hiller had two strokes. Doctors said, if he survived, he’d never walk again and would live the rest of his life in a nursing home.

“For me it was depressing,” Robert said. “I just said, ‘what did I do to deserve this?’ Really.”

But he refused to give up. Hiller worked hard to regain movement in his hands and feet, and, after months of trying, he eventually learned to walk again.

“It was a miracle,” Sandi said. “He did defy all the odds.”

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Hiller returned to his Rochester home on Tuesday with close to a hundred people cheering him on.

“I cried, it was amazing,” he said. “People I hadn’t seen in 10 years were here.”

He says he’s here today for a few reasons.

“It’s the will of God and the prayers and the support of all my friends and family that got me here to where I am today,” he said. “And, I have to say, my determination to do it.”

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