Marc's Story

In retrospect, a little bit of Godly intervention, lots of prayers and an extraordinary amount of expertise by Jupiter Medical Center’s neurointerventional radiology team put 65-year-old Marc Bowman of Port St. Lucie back to work as an independent building contractor just a few weeks after a stroke in early January.

The Godly intervention, his wife explains, was that as Marc was sitting in a Hobe Sound client’s driveway talking on his cell phone when three things happened simultaneously:

• another contractor pulled into the driveway behind Marc, blocking his car
• the homeowner approached Marc’s car to discuss last-minute changes…
• …as Marc left side went limp and his speech became incoherent, still holding his cell phone but unable to talk

The client reached into Marc’s car, turned off the engine, grabbed his cell phone and called 911 to summon the Paramedics, which transported him to Jupiter Medical Center.

Within two hours, he had been diagnosed with a stroke caused by a blood clot in the right side of his brain, and he was in surgery with Dr. Wayne Olan, Jupiter’s Director of Jupiter Medical Center’s Stroke Program.

Angie remembers Dr. Olan describing later how the large clot somehow arced over the portion of the brain that affects a person’s left side motor skills, a true miracle that aided in Marc’s full recovery from the stroke.

“If the air conditioner contractor had not blocked his car, he probably would have had the stroke while he was driving,” says a grateful Angie. “It couldn’t have happened any better, and we couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.”

Back at work within a month
A month to the day from his stroke, in fact, Marc was captaining a 62-foot custom yacht for an ocean trial to make sure earlier renovations he’d overseen were functional and seaworthy.

“Today, my husband has 100% of all of his motor skills, and he doesn’t even have facial droop,” Angie says with gratitude. “He’s doing fine, and he’s back to work. In fact, when we left the hospital about 10 days after his surgery, he stopped by one of his client’s houses because she was on a really tight schedule to get her remodeling projects done. And then we went right to the customer’s house where the stroke happened to thank her for her quick thinking to call 911.”

Angie and Marc have immense praise for the skilled and attentive actions of the Paramedics, as well as the expertise of the Jupiter team to treat Marc’s stroke quickly and provide personalized follow-up care.

“We had super-attentive care from the Intensive Care Unit staff,” she says. “Everyone was very nice, reassuring and very helpful with everything. The nurses would get answers to our questions immediately.”

“In the right place at the right time…for sure”
Marc was sent home with blood thinners and medication to control his irregular heart rate, “and other than that, he’s doing fine,” a grateful Angie explains. “When we tell everyone that Marc went to Jupiter, they all say, ‘That’s awesome. You were in the right place.’ We know it: he was in the right place at the right time, for sure.”

She and her husband of 26 years are especially grateful for the expert care and personal attention they received at Jupiter Medical Center, which has earned industry designation as a Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Center. The designation means Jupiter’s center meets core measures and best practices (as defined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association) for advanced imaging, equipment, facilities, surgery, intensive care units, step-down care and specially trained doctors/surgeons and other specialists for complex stroke treatments.

“Dr. Olan gave my adult children his personal cell phone number, and he called me personally with updates,” she says. “It was like having your own personal, neurologist specialist at Jupiter, and to have his expertise for the surgery and for the treatment to be done so well by the entire team, there are no words except words of gratitude.”

For information about stroke care at Jupiter Medical Center, call 561-263-5972.