Benefit to help local regain speech

Wine tasting, silent auction and more to fund therapy for local surfer who lost ability to talk after stroke, collapse. For more than 20 years, he was part of staff at Hi-Time cellars.
By Brianna Bailey

Updated: Saturday, September 26, 2009 8:27 PM PDT
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For weeks, nobody knew exactly what happened in the minutes before Newport Beach resident Alan Halderman collapsed on a dock in Catalina, where he was vacationing, after suffering a massive stroke.

Halderman, 53, was wearing swim trunks when he collapsed and had left his wallet back on his boat, anchored just off shore.

The stroke damaged the part of Halderman’s brain that governs communication, leaving him with a disorder known as aphasia.

Halderman couldn’t tell anyone who he was or what had happened, because he couldn’t talk....NEXT....