Lisa Peterson couldn't open her beach chair, the primary sign that something was improper.
Peterson was at Crystal Cove State Beach's Moro Beach last summer together with her then-14-year-old daughter Haylee and family friends from Rancho Cucamonga to enjoy a calming day on the beach – but the whole lot modified in a matter of minutes.
Her left hand didn't work.
Peterson tried to take a sip of water, but choked on the liquid and coughed it up.
“It was really hot,” Peterson recalled. “I thought I was just hot and dehydrated and that was it.”
Friend Jaclyn Parslow noticed Peterson's face drooping and thought she was having a stroke. She shouted to her other friend, Julie Stewart, to call a lifeguard for help.
Peterson found himself in a race against time, with every minute that passed potentially meaning the difference between walking and talking, the difference between life and death.
A fast decision
State Parks lifeguard Niel Smith remembers a comparatively calm day on July 10, but still with the same old summer crowds on the beach.
Lifeguards like Smith, who’s about to start his third summer on the job, know what to search for as they search the sand and sea. The most typical threat is the ocean, with its currents and waves that may suck an unsuspecting swimmer into the ocean.
However, lifeguards are trained to acknowledge all sorts of emergencies – even the unexpected ones.
When Smith saw Peterson's friend Stewart running toward him as he sat in Tower 3 at El Moro State Beach, he knew this wasn't the leisurely beach run that many runners do on this sandy beach.
She looked panicked.
He immediately picked up his red swimming buoy, he said, not knowing what the emergency would require at that moment.
“I think she's having a stroke,” Stewart said desperately.
The moment she uttered the word “stroke,” Smith deployed his buoy and quickly triggered an emergency call to provide emergency responders early warning that they would want immediate transport to the closest Comprehensive Stroke Center.
He rushed to Peterson, who was now lying on the sand. He introduced himself and tried to calm her down.
“The next thing I remember was this kid,” Peterson recalled recently. “He’s the last face I saw.”
No waste of time
The words that got here out of Peterson's mouth sounded normal in her head when she said them. But to others, her sentences were slurred and obscure.
She couldn't see anything but could hear the whole lot as Smith and fellow state park lifeguard Carlo Silvestre lifted her onto the ambulance to take her to the ambulance.
Peterson remembers being embarrassed and feeling the necessity to vomit. She also remembers the paramedics asking if she could lift her left arm.
She couldn’t.
The ambulance raced through summer beach traffic to take Peterson to Hoag Memorial Presbyterian Hospital, where he was picked up by doctor Avinash Mesipam, a neurointerventional radiologist and stroke specialist on the Comprehensive Stroke Center.
It is considered one of nine stroke neurology receiving centers within the county designated by the OC Health Care Agency.
Stroke treatment has modified dramatically within the last decade, Mesipam said, and there are known procedures that may remove a blood clot from an individual's brain – in the event that they arrive in time.
“Every minute that is wasted results in the loss of 2 million brain cells per minute,” he said.
Between Hoag's centers in Newport and Irvine, an estimated 80 cases per yr require intra-arterial thrombectomy, a procedure by which doctors thread a catheter through blood vessels to remove a clot.
Peterson was among the many patients saved by the procedure, thanks largely to the short pondering of friends, lifeguards and emergency responders. Two large blood clots on the precise side of her brain were removed and she or he suffered no mental or physical problems from the lingering problems that many stroke victims suffer.
From the time she arrived at Hoag to the time her blood vessel opened, it took just 42 minutes, Mesipam said. In total, it took 72 minutes from the time lifeguards arrived on the sand to the time the blood clot was removed on the hospital.
“You can’t do an operation as quickly if everyone doesn’t participate and know what their job is,” Mesipam said. “And she can go to the beach another day.”
It was Wednesday, May 15, when Peterson stepped onto the identical sandy beach for the primary time to warmly thank the lifeguards who helped save her life, along together with her family, a team from Hoag and State officials Parks gather to attend the reunion.
As Smith and Silvestre exited her ambulance, she wrapped her arms round her neck in a warm embrace. They also hugged Peterson's teenage daughter Haylee, mother and daughter wiping away tears.
“I was just hoping for the best for you,” Smith told Peterson.
“Your great recovery means even more to us,” he added. “It confirms to us that we are doing something here, reaching people and making a difference.”
Peterson noted how cool Smith, then just 19, handled the pressure and the way he didn't panic at such a young age. She came upon that he was training to be a nurse.
“You did a good job,” she said with a smile.
Hoping for the very best
State Parks Peace Officer Chief Danielle Snyder, also an experienced State Parks training officer, said that is an incident that lifeguards train for, putting in lots of of hours to not only find out about currents and beach safety, but additionally about emergency measures of all types.
“As a training officer, that’s what I want to see,” she said. “It was just nice to see everything working as it should on every level.”
And often they put a victim in an ambulance without knowing the consequence.
“We have a lot of question marks,” she said.
Most days, the people lifeguards help can walk home from the beach shaken, but sometimes more serious cases like Peterson find yourself within the hospital, the consequence unknown.
“You hope for the best…You definitely think about it,” Silvestre said. “You don’t always hear an answer. It’s always really nice to hear when things are going well.”
Peterson said she has one condition for her next beach day this summer.
“I’m only going to the beach you’re responsible for,” she joked.
She added: “You won't have to save me again, I promise.”
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