From Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach man praises first responders and hospital staff for life-saving stroke treatment

Swift action by a neighbor and first responders helped save the life of a Palm Beach man after he suffered a stroke in March.

Michael Stander, 67, was at his home on South County Road on March 1 when he began experiencing symptoms of a stroke, including right side paralysis, difficulty speaking and abnormal eye movement.

After he was stabilized, Stander was transported to #StMarysMedicalCenter in West Palm Beach for further treatment, arriving within 19 minutes of the 911 call, hospital officials said.

"St. Mary's was waiting for him," Matzen told the Daily News. "When the crew arrived, they took him straight over to CT Scan, where they identified that it was a stroke."

Stander suffered an ischemic stroke, said Dr. Ali Malek, an interventional neurologist and endovascular neurosurgeon who is director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at St. Mary’s.

"We were able to get the vessels open as much as we could," Malek told the Daily News. "The purpose of opening the vessels is to reduce the size of the stroke. Almost always, given that individual brain cells start dying at about three minutes, there's always still a stroke. What we're trying to do is we're trying to make it as small as possible so that the person can recover as much as possible. He was very fortunate in that the parts of the brain that were affected, the rest of the brain was able to compensate for it quite well, and he did very well with therapies and everything else."

Stander remained in the hospital for about 10 days before going home.

He praised St. Mary's medical staff for the "absolutely magnificent" treatment he received.

"I was in their hands, and it was perfect," he said.

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