A NATIONAL campaign to raise awareness of strokes has claimed a success when a man collapsed at his Hampshire home and he and his wife followed the advice to get help swift help.
Michael Fitzgerald, 62, suffered a stroke in the bathroom at his home in Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire last month.
Luckily, his wife Beryl, 60, and Mr Fitzgerald had seen a Department of Health advertisement on television the night before.
It featured a man on a football terrace experiencing the first signs of stroke along with the FAST slogan - Facial weakness - Arm weakness - Speech problems - Time to call 999.
Retired Ford worker Mr Fitzgerald was taken to Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital where he had a brain scan and was then given a clot-busting drug treatment called thrombolysis that thins the blood. He then underwent an operation to unclog arteries in his neck.
''Without having seen the ad, I could easily have regarded my collapse as a funny turn,'' he said.
Consultant physician Dr John Duffy, who specialises in stroke care at the Winchester hospital, said: "It is amazing to think that an advert could have saved his life or at least prevented a stroke that could have left him severely disabled.''
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