OTW signs of stroke

[GregAndrew]

On Sat., Tony (ful-rac) and I were coming back into King Harbor and rescued an elderly man that was having an apparent stroke. The guy was within 50 feet of the end of the short breakwall, struggling on a paddle board. There were literally 10 other people in the immediate vicinity of the man when we had just entered the harbor mouth. Not one of them took a few seconds to ask the man if he was having a problem. I will grant that most of the people in the immediate vicinity were on paddleboards for probably the very first time, but that was not true for the idiot teaching them. As we got closer to the man, I heard one of his students ask if the old guy was ok and he said, offhand, yeah he is ok. Here was the problem: The guy was able, just barely, to stay above water and hold onto his paddle board. He was unable to speak or communicate. He seemed to think that he was not paralyzed down his entire left side. He looked, from the outside, to be attempting to pull something up from the bottom while using his board as leverage. That is exactly what we thought for a couple of minutes as we approched, but he was not letting go of the apparent object he was holding even when his board would slip away from him. The first time his board slipped away, he was able to grab it pretty quickly, the second time was our que to act. Tony, in hs new PA, kicked it in gear and arrived first. He asked the guy if he was ok, and was answered with only grunts. He quickly said "give me your hand" and the guy did, only to pull away again to grab his board. Tony got his arm again and did not let go. I switched my radio to 16 and called out the mayday, and told them we probably had a stroke victim and where we were. The Lifeguard boat was there in probably 2 minutes and took the guy away. Don't know the status of the guy, but thought that the story should be told if only for what to look for in an otw stroke victim. (I am no doctor, and it could very well have been some other medical condition. But the guys left side was useless and made it look exactly like someone trying to pull an anchor or stuck lobster pot off the bottom). In dealing with the guy, he acted as if he did not realize he was paralyzed (pulling away from Tony), so be prepared for that in case you come across a similar situation.