Know what FAST means, not just one sign of a stroke
Strokes are two times higher for black people
He stepped out of the driver’s seat of his limousine, ready to fill up his tank. Tired, annoyed and ready to go home, this brotha (approximately 6'3, about 220 pounds, with an NFL player’s build) pondered about where his life was headed. He’d lost his job a year before and was in panic mode.
How does someone with a master’s degree and years of management and marketing experience suddenly have such a hard time finding a job? His wife and kids were supportive of him, but as a man, all he wanted was to be able to support them — not depend on them. Instead of just becoming an Uber or Lyft driver or a limousine driver, he studied chauffeur businesses and decided he would start his own travel line instead.
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But as his business management degree taught him, the first thing he needed to do was learn from the ground up how the industry works. So the man with the master’s degree became a chauffeur driver to learn the life. But that day, he just wanted to go home and relax. As he got ready to pump gas, something along his side felt strange, almost numb. He’d seen enough Internet posts to know what was happening. He turned slowly, walked with purpose and barely made it into the gas station door. By the time he got to the counter, he was slurring.
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The cashier turned to look at him and immediately started laughing. He tapped a friend, who also laughed at the burly man barely holding onto the counter. Finally the chauffeur driver made a motion with his fingers as if he was writing with a pen. The two cashiers snickered, wondering what this clearly inebriated man could possibly write. The smiles dropped as they read what was on the paper: 9–1–1. They had no idea up until that moment that the slurring sounds they were hearing were the signs of a man having a stroke.
