Healthy, strong and active, 72-year-old Carleton Golder hadn’t missed a physical in at least 25 years. That didn’t stop a stroke from striking in March 2022, while he was at work. He was interviewing a job applicant when he started rubbing his temples, and actually lost his place in the conversation. The applicant had worked in a medical emergency environment for several years, and didn’t hesitate to call 911. Within 8 minutes, EMS were on the scene.
“Are my words slurring?” Deborah Martinez asked a coworker back in 2018, the day she had a stroke at work. Then her body dropped, and her head fell. The coworker knew the stroke symptoms and called 911 right away. Deborah was able to get a thrombectomy at a nearby Level 1 stroke center within a couple of hours of her symptoms starting, which according to her surgeon, made all the difference in her survival.
Belendia Williams saw a stroke up close when she found her 35-year-old sister Leah Speights unresponsive on her bed. Leah, who was pregnant, had experienced migraines for years but didn’t think much of her headache that cold morning in February 2018. But when she got sick to her stomach and fell to the floor several times, she called her sister, who called EMS. A neurointerventional care team worked quickly to address the multiple clots that were attacking Leah’s brain.
39-year-old Chad Thompson had just finished trimming apple trees in April 2022 when he began to feel strange. At first, it was a slight change in his vision, but then he began dropping things. Although he could still speak, Chad was having a severe stroke. First responders took him to a facility where he could get a thrombectomy. During his recovery, he saw some people his age going by his door using walkers. “They weren’t in good shape,” he says. “It was like glimpsing what my life could have been like.”
Kailyn Bever was just 18 months old when her stroke story began. Difficulty breathing and a worsening and uncontrollable fever were the early signs that something was wrong. But no one suspected a stroke. Turns out Kailyn had experienced several ischemic strokes. Even though a thrombectomy would be risky given her small arteries, it was the best course of action. “The symptoms of stroke in children are usually a little different than an adult, but the time-sensitive nature of the condition is the same,” says Kailyn’s doctor.
When Dora Brown went to dinner one evening in August 2019, she had no idea she’d be in an ambulance the next day. “I remember just trying to clear my eyes,” she said. Dora’s double vision was a sign of a severe stroke. Soon she realized that her legs were heavy and uncooperative, and she had trouble moving her arms. First responders arrived to her home just after her husband did. Medical staff did x-rays, saw the clot and knew that Dora needed Level 1 stroke center care.
Get Ahead of Stroke® is a national public education and advocacy campaign designed to improve systems of care for stroke patients. Founded in 2016 by the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS), today the campaign is supported by a coalition of organizations with the goal of securing the best possible outcomes for stroke patients by driving policy change and public awareness nationwide.
