ConTact C.A.R.E. Stroke Protocol

ConTact CARE students are taught a stroke protocol.

 

Several years ago, not long after we had learnt it, I was talking to my friend and fellow student, Argenia. Suddenly, as I was talking, something strange started to happen to me. The right  side of my face felt all droopy, and I could feel drool start to spill out of my mouth. I tried to say, "I think I'm having a stroke", but I couldn't form the words, or send that message to my mouth, and all that came out was a garbled, "SToke! STroKE! sTROKe!" I was terrified, and looked at Argenia who seemed pretty freaked out too. She immediately leapt into action and performed the stroke protocol on me. A few minutes later, it was like nothing had happened, and I was completely back to normal. It was just such a bizarre, scary and extreme experience, and over so very quickly, it was like we couldn't really get our heads around what had happened. So we just went back to chatting, and have never spoken of it since. 

 

But how lucky was I? Will always be grateful to my friend, who by some miracle was there at the right moment, had the knowledge to help me, and was able to function so effectively under pressure. 

 

And no surprises, I really like working with the stroke protocol, and have had some very interesting experiences when applying it.