Stroke survivor Eugene raises £12k and brings positive message four years after brain haemorrhage

"I just felt a bit of noise in my forehead. Whenever it started I knew I was in trouble. This was either the beginning or the end,” said the Tamnaherin-native.

Up until December 28, 2019, Eugene was hardly sick a day in his life. He knew instinctively something was seriously wrong.

"I had to walk a good wee bit up the yard. I got to the back of the house and had to put myself down. The power had gone completely out of my left hand side. Just the minute that noise started, there was no pain, no sickness but it came like that out of the blue, and hit me like that.”

Even Eugene’s dogs could intuit their master’s distress.

"The two dogs sensed there was something wrong. They were running around me. I put myself down on the grass and they were up on my back.

"In between times I must have got through on the phone because the wife heard the phone ringing and happened to look out the window and saw me lying on the grass,” said Eugene.

He had suffered a brain haemorrhage, triggering a stroke. Within minutes the emergency services were on the scene.

Eugene is full of praise for the swiftness of their response and the care he received once admitted to Altnagelvin.

"Within eight to ten minutes the rapid response was there. Within 12 to 15 minutes the ambulance was there. I was in through casualty, scanned and in Ward 40 within about an hour. I was there for three months.

“I had to get a lot of physio. Everybody was great to me. I'd like to see that in the paper because there are so many people have so much to say about hospitals. The care is second to none. Even down to the girl who shouts the tea. They couldn't do more for you.”

Before his medical emergency Eugene worked as a haulier, driving lorries and buses and as a mechanic.

In a strange way he is grateful the stroke occurred when it did while he was at home on the Highmoor Road rather than out on the road.

“I had stepped out of a lorry half an hour before I took the stroke. I was heading away that Saturday night. I drove a bus at the weekends for a man.

"I was taking a bus load to Portrush that Saturday evening so it was good that it happened at the time it did. If it had happened when I was in Portrush I would have come home in a box,” he reflected.

He remembers the beginning of the new decade as the start of a long road.

"I needed a lot of physio. I was completely paralysed down the left hand side. Sometimes people lose a bit of power but I was completely paralysed.

“The physio team in the hospital were very, very good. They worked me for a week, maybe two weeks after the stroke,” he said.

Eugene was discharged from hospital as COVID-19 arrived in our lives in March 2020.

It was at this point that the Chest Heart & Stroke charity started providing support at home.

“They were very, very good. They came to the house and got me on my feet with a stick. I progressed from there,” he said.

Stephen McKendry from Your Physio at the Vale Centre was another source of support as Eugene got back on his feet.

"He said, ‘If you can move your leg I'll strengthen it’. He worked on my leg and left it that I can walk a bit now myself.”

Eugene was just 61 when he suffered the stroke. Before that he had worked seven days a week. The physical impact is only half the story.

“People who haven't had a stroke don’t realise but you are grieving for the person that you were. I grieve on different days because the person you were, you are no longer. I used to do different things. I was on the go all the time. Seven days a week. Then like the flick of a switch everything changed.”

Derry woman shares how the FAST campaign saved her when having a stroke

Having made significant progress on the road to recovery Eugene now volunteers with CHS at weekly support group sessions at the Shantallow Community Centre.

"I'm doing it more for the people who have just taken a stroke because I've come through it and am as good as I'll ever be.

"I was in talking about cholesterol this week, having tea and talking to different people who have had strokes.

"If someone had said to me four years ago when I was in England with a lorry, you will be in with CHS...’

Eugene – with the help of his family and daughter Karen – recently held a social evening in the Granhsa Social Club to raise funds for CHS.

Music was provided by The 3 Jays among others and Eugene enlisted a story-teller from Ardboe. Prizes were donated with local businesses chipping in. A great night was enjoyed by all.

Incredibly £12,670 was raised with £12,170 going to CHS; £400 to Ward 40; and £100 for training bikes for the CHS clinic at Shantallow.

Eugene hopes his testimony will provide a message of hope and positivity for stroke survivors.

"There is light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe not the full light but there is light.

“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would take a stroke. I wasn't a drinker and I wasn't a smoker. I wasn't a teetotaller but I wouldn't have gone to the pub to drink pints of beer.

"I did smoke but I was off the cigarettes for 33 years. I was quite heavy but I was fit enough. There is no age for a stroke. It can happen from 0 to whatever time you die.”

Eamon is living proof that there can be recovery from a stroke, even years later