Commencement holds added meaning for Penn State Smeal grad after tragic accident

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. –– Patrick Hoey’s path to Penn State graduation took a crushing turn on a summer night in 2023.

Hoey was enjoying a vacation with family friends at a home in New York’s Finger Lakes region and gearing up for his junior year in Penn State’s Smeal College of Business.

He made a spontaneous move any college kid might do: A dive off the backyard dock into the dark lake below.

“And then I just couldn't feel anything,” Hoey recalled. “I was kind of sitting there face down in the water, thinking ‘I'm gonna die.’”

Hoey doesn’t remember much of what happened next. He knows his friends pulled him from the water. He knows the lake in that spot was more shallow than he recalled from a previous swim.

Hoey was taken by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital an hour away in Rochester, where he underwent emergency surgery. When he woke up afterward, he was unable to move anything below his chest and had only limited motion in his upper arms.

Nearly three years later, Hoey is graduating from Smeal with his degree in risk management.

It’s not the commencement day he imagined.

But it’s the one he feels incredibly lucky to experience.

“The way I cross the stage may look different,” Hoey said, “but the way it will feel is infinitely more meaningful.”

A life ‘completely changed’

Hoey suffered a fracture to his C4-C5 vertebrae, in the lower part of his neck. It’s among the most serious types of spinal cord injuries, according to the National Institutes of Health. Patients with that type of damage can be completely paralyzed and might not ever breathe on their own again.

“It was really unsure what his level of ability would be,” Patrick’s mom, Diane Hoey, said. “Literally in a blink of an eye, his life completely changed. That's just the perspective of how traumatic that is.”

But Hoey was off the ventilator almost immediately. He spent a week in the hospital in Rochester, and then about a month at Magee Rehabilitation, a facility closer to his family’s home in the Philadelphia suburb of Devon.

One of the highlights of that month in Magee was a visit from Penn State Assistant Teaching Professor Ambrose Curtis, who taught Hoey in a public speaking class in the spring of 2023, just before the injury. Curtis said he’ll never forget how, on the first day of class, Hoey introduced himself and shook his hand and then presented him with a gift of pistachios, Curtis’ favorite snack, on the last.

In the hospital, Hoey told Curtis things could have been much worse.

“His attitude is, has always been, since the injury so upbeat and chipper and optimistic about where he's heading,” Curtis said.

That connection is so strong that Curtis has a lecture that features Hoey, who remains a strong public speaker despite the fact that his injury made his diaphragm weaker.

By spring semester, in January 2024, Hoey enrolled in online classes at Penn State. He did the same for the 2024-25 school year, all while intense outpatient rehab continued.

His end goal was to graduate in person at the University Park campus.

“That was a big motivating factor for me in my recovery,” Hoey said.

Surgery and rehab helped Hoey regain some use of his hands and wrists. He can lift his arms in the air. Some feeling has returned to his legs.

What remains uncertain is how much farther Hoey’s recovery will go or whether future medical advancements might help.

“I’m not giving up hope yet,” he said.

‘So much more than a moment’

Hoey returned to Penn State full time in fall 2025, just over two years after that devastating dive into Keuka Lake.

Doing so meant a whole new skill set, including learning how to navigate the notoriously hilly University Park campus in his powered wheelchair. Learning how to use his thumbs to tap out notes on his phone. Learning how to take written exams with fingers that can’t type on a keyboard.

Hoey credits his physical and occupational therapists at Magee for helping learn to be more independent.

“When I'm out at school and classes, sometimes it can be four or five hours where I'll be by myself having to navigate the world as someone who just was unable to move anything two years prior,” Hoey said.

Vilma Mazziol, a vocational rehabilitation counselor who works with young adults at Magee, helped Hoey arrange accommodations from Penn State’s Student Disability Resources office.

Smeal staff and students also rallied around Hoey. Amanda Tuscan , Hoey’s academic adviser, worked closely with him on choosing online classes and easing his return to campus. Tuscan also made sure Hoey was on track to graduate, and that there would be a spot at the ceremony for his power chair.

“The professors have all been really great about accommodating me however I need,” Hoey said. “The people in the community, they want to see you succeed here, which is awesome.”

By the time he returned to campus, two of Hoey’s younger sisters, Ashley and Rennie, were also there. A third sister, Lindsey, starts as a freshman this fall. Mom Diane and dad Ed are also alumni, as was Diane’s father.

The Hoeys were so committed to Penn State, and to Patrick’s graduation, that Diane, who’s also a nurse, came back to University Park with him. They secured an off-campus, accessible apartment and she drove her son to campus daily in their wheelchair-accessible van.

The larger Penn State family also has been a source of tremendous support, Hoey said. He received the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation Scholarship for students with spinal cord injuries, which helped him in his to return to school.

In April 2024, Hoey was honored with the Adam Taliaferro Award for courage. Taliaferro suffered a spinal cord injury during a football game in 2000 as a freshman cornerback for the Nittany Lions. He underwent rehab at Magee and regained the ability to walk. Today he is a successful business executive and politician.

Back at Magee, Mazziol will throw a party this summer for Hoey and hang his photo on her office door, a tradition she maintains for all of her patients who finish school. She’s also a Penn State alumna.

Hoey is anxious to return to Magee to continue outpatient rehab, something he had to forego while at school. In the future, he sees himself becoming an advocate for spinal cord patients and hopes to grow his brand, Hope4Hoey.

“Before my injury, I pictured graduation as something expected of me, a standard milestone,” Hoey said. “Now, after working so hard to come back, it stands for so much more than a moment.”