The Truth About Spotting a Stroke Victim.
The problem about social media is the, People post things example (Facebook) and when there enough hits, the person who posted it gets money, their paid for it. So people tug at emotions, pictures of abused children, burn victims, religion, your heartless if you don't type amen, such a crock of bull.
We all hate someone being abused, or misfortunes, people suffering an accident, we are scared that when we die we won't go to heaven so we type amen, push like and share, we really don't want to suffering medical emergency. There's a post on Facebook that says, They found a new indicator for spotting a stroke victim, when you go to the site and read and share it, now the scary part if we share it with 10 people we'll save a life. its about a unfortunate story follows about a lady dying because someone didn't recognize a stroke victim.
Stroke~The Warning Signs
In this piece they proclaim that,
"Stroke has a new indicator! They say if you forward this to ten people, you stand a chance of saving one life. Will you send this along? Blood Clots/Stroke - They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue."
They want you to share this so people hit on the site and profits come rolling in, FAKE NEWS.
The story goes, that this lady is at a BBQ and suffers a stroke and because people didn't recognize it she dies of it a few hours later, well missing the signs and symptoms of a stroke pretty hard their evident, especially in the story they spoke to the lady and she informed them that she was fine she just tripped. They tell you to follow STR,
The truth is some 30 plus years ago that's what they encouraged people to do if you believed someone was suffering a stroke have them stick their tongues out, if their tongue drooped to one side it was a good indication that their suffering a stroke, if their tongue pointed straight out well possibly there's no stroke. So here'is quick lesson on Recognizing a Stroke Victim.
Know your role as a First Aider it is 3 easy steps.
1) Recognize an emergency.
2) Call 911.
3) Return to care for the victim until EMT's arrive.
Recognizing an emergency its easy. If something doesn't look right, so in the case of a stroke people will look to get sit down, or they will fall because they usually loose their strength on one side of their body, their posture isn't looking right (normal). approach them and ask if their ok. So now lets remember FAST
F = face
A = arm
S = speech
T = time
ITS NOT STR........
F = face
A = arm
S = speech
T = time
ITS NOT STR........
Look for dilated pupils
Now at this point its unmistakable, just to reassure ask the to stick out their tongue,
Call 911 there's a 3 hour window to have the person given the drug tPA to break down the blood clot then a ct scan to locate a the blockage and an instrument inserted to remove the clot to reverse the affects of the stroke.
I'm not saying that the story in the articular never happened, what may have happened was the lady suffered a TIA (transient ischemic attack) or a mini stroke,people that suffer this usually doesn't recognize it because a temporary blockage. Had she taken a stroke people whould have seen the signs and call 911
If we just slow down just a little bit and pay attention to our surroundings we can stop and help people that may be suffering medical emergency and take 10 minutes of our time and call 911 even if they refuse call 911, let the experts determine if it merits a trip to the emergency room.
