It started as an ordinary day at work for Bob Newbold of Newington — until the moment something seemed off.
“All of the sudden I think I got about to here and it’s like, I’m walking, and here’s my left arm,” he said. “But where’s my right arm? And it’s dangling there.”
Then he fell and couldn’t form words.
“My wife came in and asked me a question, and I couldn’t answer it,” he said. “I couldn’t talk.”
Pat Newbold remembers that day, too. Bob’s physical state was now an emergency, and the pace had everyone moving quickly to help.
“I thought he had a heart attack,” she recalled. “And then I realized he was breathing. And then he couldn’t talk. I was asking him to say my name.”
But Bob couldn’t say anything.
“So all of the sudden it dawned on me: He’s having a stroke,” she said.
Bob was rushed to Hartford Hospital, a comprehensive stroke center that has everything in place to treat stroke. The team administered a clot buster, and then he went to a neuro-interventional radiologist, who removed the clot.
The blood flow returned, and remarkably, so did his motion and his speech.
“It was so miraculous,” Pat said, referring to her husband’s speedy recovery.
Today, you can find Bob giving talks in the community, working with first responders, and reminding people to think F.A.S.T. if you ever suspect a stroke.
Know The Signs of Stroke
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For more information on the Hartford HealthCare Ayer Neuroscience Stroke Center, click here.