World Stroke Day 2018: El Paso man shares his story of surviving a stroke
October 29th is World Stroke Day, a day that brings awareness to the prevention and treatment of strokes.
ABC-7 spoke with 77-year old Jesus Gallegos, a stroke survivor who says he is very lucky to be alive after suffering a stroke back in 2015. Gallegos suffered the stroke while he was outside one afternoon mowing a friend’s lawn.
“I felt fine. I went out there and I started doing it, and after a while, I just dropped. I just fell on my knees and that was it,” Gallegos said.
According to studies, one in six people are likely to suffer from any type of stroke once in their lifetime.
For Gallegos, that stroke would be an embolic stroke, occurs when a blood clot or debris travels from one part of the body and lodges in a narrower brain artery, blocking blood flow to the brain.
“They say that embolic strokes you never really get to what they refer to as warning signs,” said Gallegos.
Some of those warning signs include checking if the persons face is drooping, then checking if they are able to raise both arms, and last, is their speech slurred or jumbled. If a person has all those symptoms that’s when its time to call 911. That’s exactly what Gallegos friend did when she realized that he was not able to raise both arms.
“She knew that she wasn’t able to get me out of whatever I was going through so she went ahead and called 911 right away,” said Gallegos.
He was transported to University Medical Center where doctors were able to treat him for his stroke. He stood in the hospital for about 6 days.
Two weeks later he returned for a check up. While at his check-up, Dr. Maud, the head of neurology at University Medical Center, was surprised to see how well Gallegos was doing.
“He had his hand out so I got up and I shook his hand and he goes, ‘I just witnessed a miracle,'” Gallegos said. The stroke survivor went on to say that Dr. Maud told him that if he would’ve gotten to the hospital 7 to 10 minutes later, he wouldn’t have been here at all.
Gallegos urges others to call 911 right away if they witness a person having a stroke, because that’s how his life was saved.
“It’s not a guessing game. The important thing is to get that person to the hospital right away,” said Gallegos.
CLICK HERE to find out more ways on how you can prevent a stroke from occurring.
