“Ultra-fast” Treatment Helps Weslaco Man to Walk & Talk Again After “Brain Attack”

Alfonso Soto Jr. of Weslaco was driving, running an errand on March 12, when his brother-in-law, who was in the passenger seat, noticed that Mr. Soto suddenly just “didn’t look good”.

Mr. Soto, age 65, was slurring his speech and his face was drooping. Mr. Soto pulled over at a gas station, and his brother-in-law called 911. Soon, an ambulance arrived, and the Emergency Medical Services technicians saw that Mr. Soto was having a stroke – similar to a heart attack but to the brain.

Mr. Soto previously had been treated for heart attacks at a McAllen hospital, and his family asked that he be taken to that same hospital. But the Weslaco Fire Department EMS personnel advised them that since it appeared it was Mr. Soto’s brain that was being affected, they should instead take him immediately to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen — since Valley Baptist is the only hospital in the Valley capable of performing specialized “endovascular” procedures to open the blood vessels to the brain during a stroke.

When Mr. Soto arrived at Valley Baptist, he was greeted by a specialized “Stroke Team” which included Dr. Wondwossen Tekle, one of only two specialized “endovascular neurologists in the Valley (the other being Dr. Ameer Hassan, also of Valley Baptist). Mr. Soto was quickly taken to a special room for a CT scan of the brain.

After the CT scan, Dr. Tekle ordered an I.V. injection of a “clot-busting” medication to reverse the stroke. The medication was infused into Mr. Soto in a record-breaking “door to needle” time of 12 minutes from the time he first came into the hospital.

While Mr. Soto received extremely-fast treatment, it turned out that because the blood clot was so large in his case, there was not much improvement as a result of the clot-busting medication injected through the I.V. So, Valley Baptist staff took Mr. Soto to a specialized “bi-plane neuro-angiography suite”, where Dr. Tekle used a mechanical device to pull the large blood clot out of Mr. Soto’s brain. Once the clot was out, blood was able to again flow to Mr. Soto’s brain — and Dr. Tekle noticed an almost immediate improvement.

Amazingly, Mr. Soto – who hadn’t remembered anything since he was first brought to the hospital – began talking clearly. Later that evening and the next day, he was not only talking and eating, but walking again.

For more information about prevention and treatment for stroke, consult your physician and visit www.ValleyBaptist.net