On September 7, Rico Talamantes, a local barber, was at home, anticipating two big events: his birthday and the arrival of his grandbaby.
“I was really looking forward to my grandson being born. My birthday was on the 10th, and I just was hoping he'd be born on the 10th.” Rico recalled that it was a beautiful Sunday. “I was with my wife and my daughter, Brianna, and, I was sitting there just enjoying the weather, and as I got up to come in, I had this double vision. It was kind of like the room was moving, and it was just so severe that I knew something was really wrong.”
Rico asked his wife to take him to Parkview Regional Medical Center (PRMC) for care.
Acting quickly
“Time is brain,” Dr. Garrett Bennett, neurointerventional surgeon, Parkview Health, said. “You hear that a lot. From the moment an artery becomes blocked, at that point, there are brain cells that are not receiving adequate blood flow. The result of that those cells die. That's what causes stroke. Every second you wait, thousands of neurons die. Time is essential.”
After receiving his initial treatment, Rico was showing major signs of improvement. “When I first met Rico, I was just starting my normal morning rounds and I was like, ‘We'll get your images, get you out of here, hopefully today, because you're doing so well,’” Bryson Robuck, PPG nurse practitioner, Parkview Health, recalled.
Then the situation took an unexpected turn. Rico’s wife, Karen, remembers the event clearly. “It was 11 a.m., because I remember looking at the clock and Rico sitting in the chair and us kind of joking with our son and daughter-in-law.”
“I wanted to pop my ears,” Rico adds. As he did so, he heard a strange sound.
“When he stopped, he just kind of stared at me.” Karen said. “I started to hurry around, and by the time I got around the bed, he was starting to slump over out of the chair.”
Everyone rushed to provide quick, critical intervention.
A close call
After an emergency procedure, Dr. Bennett was able to share some promising news. “It went really well,” he said. “We went up with the catheter right up to the blocked artery, sucked the blood clot out, and then we could see immediately that there was blood flow restored to the brain.”
Rico’s next memory is of waking up. “The next thing I know, I hear a voice. ‘Hey, can you tell me your name?’ I have a friend and he used to call me this all the time when he saw me. He'd say, ‘Suave, Rock. Rico Suave.’ As I'm lying there and I hear this guy ask me what my name was, I just kind of say, ‘Suave, Rock. Rico Suave.’ And I open my eyes, and my wife's like, ‘Oh my gosh.’"
Eventually, Rico was released, but he didn’t go home right away. He had someone to meet!
“They released me from the neuro floor, and I went straight down to the birthing center to see baby Russell. It was awesome.”
Russell was born on September 11, one day after his grandfather’s birthday. “He missed my birthday by one day! And I'm just so thankful that I get to be a part of his life, you know? And I can hold him, and I can talk to him. Because I didn't have to be here. And I'm just thankful for that.”
