Quick action, right action can turn lives around

Darrell Figy certainly didn't plan for a stroke that day. But quick action turned his life around. From a story in the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader:

"You would never know just looking at me that I ever had a stroke, the way I talk, the way I walk, the way I dress," Figy said. 

Only about 5 percent of stroke patients receive the drug Figy got -- tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved tPA for stroke patients if given within three hours of the patient showing stroke symptoms. Many don't get to the hospital in time.

"A lot of people don't complain," [Dr. Scott] Duff said. "It's painless. They're in a state of denial, or the stroke has taken away their ability to recognize that there's a problem."