Stroke of luck

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (KFSN) -- If you're going to have one, there's probably no better place to have a stroke than in a hospital. Mike McEvoy found that out first hand, even though he was there to help his brother.

Mike and Doug McEvoy are about as close as two brothers can be.

So it made sense Mike and his mom would go to the hospital to help Doug get through his spinal surgery.

Mike said, "On that particular day I wanted to go because I was concerned about Doug's health."

But guess what happened to mike while he was waiting for his brother to get out of surgery?

Emma, Mike's mom, said "We were sitting there, just gonna have a sandwich and all of sudden he looked at me with sort of a blank look and then the next thing he slid off the chair and the chair went down."

The bad news: Mike was having a stroke. The good: he was already at the hospital.

Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, Director at the Baptist Jacksonville Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center, said "Luck of the draw, as they told me there's no better place to have a stroke than a comprehensive stroke center."

It took doctor Hanel less than 30 minutes to dissolve the blood clot that caused Mike's stroke, and re-establish blood flow to his brain. Mike's real stroke of luck was getting Dr. Hanel with his pioneering stent procedure.

"I never lost consciousness through this entire process," Mike told Ivanhoe.

Remember Doug? While he was waking up from his surgery, he hears the news.

Doug said, "He came by just waving and feeling happy and they put him up to recover right next to me. It's just one of those miracles that's all there was to it, if there's such a thing."

"We like to call it, or I like to call it, a stroke of luck because to have this done at that particular or have it happen at that particular time there's got to be some divine intervention there," Mike told Ivanhoe.

And let's not forget about mike and Doug's happy mom.

"I think everything worked out right," Emma said.

Doctors call the first hour after a stroke the "golden hour" because receiving the right kind of medical care quickly is critical to improve your odds of a full recovery.