Lansing resident Jack O’Conner had been in the hospital with bouts of atrial fibrillation before, but this time it was different. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath and his left arm and leg began to go numb. While in the emergency department, his cardiologist Shashidhar Divakaruni, MD, recognized that O’Conner was suffering from an ischemic stroke and immediately called all stroke team members to his side.
"He reassured me that it would be OK and that he was there,” O’Conner says.
O’Conner learned that he had a blood clot in his heart due to atrial fibrillation. There is a small window of time to reverse the paralysis, and the quick actions of Divakaruni and the whole stroke team at Community Hospital, proved to make a difference for O’Conner. He was given tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a clot-busting drug approved for certain patients having a stroke.
Not even 20 minutes later, he was able to life his left arm and then a few minutes later, lift his left leg.
“I am very thankful that I was in the right place at the right time,” O’Conner says.
Learn more about the Stroke Centers of Excellence at the hospitals of Community Healthcare System.
