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Oakland Transit driver honored for helping to save woman
Comparoni intended to take a woman in her 70s back home after getting cardiac rehabilitation. She felt fine when she left the hospital, until she wasn't.
OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich. (FOX 2) - A transit driver is being called a hero when he recognized that his passenger was having symptoms of a stroke in Oakland County.
Timeline:
On the morning of March 20 in front of McLaren Oxford ER, John Comparoni, a driver for the North Oakland Transit Authority, saved a woman's life that morning.
Comparoni intended to take a woman in her 70s back home after getting cardiac rehabilitation. She felt fine when she left the hospital, until she wasn't.
"She was talking fine. We were carrying on communication just like we are right here but then all of a sudden her face kind of drooped and I didn’t know, I’m thinking, okay, she having a stroke or heart attack, so I knew she was having some type of something was going on," said Comparoni.
The instincts were right. The woman was having a stroke. Quickly, Comparoni turned the vehicle around and pulled up to ER.
What's next:
For his efforts, the CEO of McLaren Oakland gave Comparoni the community healthcare hero award on Wednesday.
By coincidence, May happens to be National Stroke Awareness month. The doctor says a stroke happens when some part of the brain is not getting enough blood flow to it.
"She was having a very acute stroke I mean complete right sided weakness. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t communicate with us," said Dr. Kathleen Stipek.
McLaren says statistics show strokes are the number four cause of death in the United States, but the leading cause of adult disability.