A combination of fun in the sun and heat exhaustion added up to emergency brain surgery for a Miami dad.

Fernando Vera was vacationing with his sons in the Dominican Republic when he started twitching and collapsed.

He was rushed to the ER, and then flown back to Miami, where he was diagnosed with a cerebral vascular malformation.

“Which is a collection of blood vessels that creates a ball, and those collections of blood vessels can cause bleeding in the brain, or seizures,” neurosurgeon Robert Starke said.

Starke said each time Fernando had a bleed, the more likely he would have another, causing more damage to his brain each time. His best option was surgery to remove it.

Fernando’s surgery required him to be awake and talk to surgeons during the procedure.

“If we do this surgery awake, I’m able to stimulate those areas to carefully identify where are the speech centers, and where the seizures coming from,” Starke said.

A resident spoke with Fernando for several hours.

The surgery was a success, and Fernando went home two days after the procedure, and hasn't had a seizure since.

Awake surgery for vascular malformations is extremely rare due to the proximity to the section of the brain that controls speech, the surgeries are safer when carried out awake.

Watch the video above for the full story.