Yesteryears: Experience of Tipperary paramedic shows that strokes need not be fatal

This week for our Yesteryears feature we return to our edition dated September 20, 2012.

Our lead article that week ten years ago related to stroke awareness and told the story of how a Clonmel man, Joe O’Donoghue, had suffered a stroke but thankfully made a full recovery.

In his interview with Eamon Lacey, Joe, a paramedic based at South Tipperary General Hospital, told how he reacted when he suffered a stroke at home in bed at three in the morning, but still had the presence of mind to realise what was happening, and more importantly, how to properly react to the situation. Joe had spent 14 months out of work as he went through his recuperation process at the hands of a multidisciplinary team at STGH and the stroke assessment unit in Cashel Hospital.

According to Joe, a member of the South Tipperary Stroke Support Group, what people need to know is that in many cases stroke is highly treatable if caught early and treated with thrombolysis.

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Take a look back with this week's Yesteryears in The Nationalist

SUCCESS IN ENTENTE FLORALE
Also that week, in another piece, the Mayor of Clonmel, Cllr Billy Shoer, hailed the town’s success in the European Entente Florale competition, after Clonmel was presented with a silver medal at a prize giving ceremony in Venlo, Holland.

Cllr Shoer praised the many local groups that played a part in helping the town win the award in a competition that focuses on quality of life and environmental issues and is the largest competition of its kind in the world.

OUTSTANDING STUDENTS
We also carried a front page piece that week about two Tipperary students who achieved outstanding results in their Junior Cert examinations. Tipperary Town’s Robert O’Donnell and Clonmel’s Kate Johnston both managed 12 straight ‘As’, two of just 19 in all of Ireland to do so.

HUGE FUNERAL IN CARRICK-ON-SUIR
Also that week the people of Carrick-on-Suir were coming to terms with the tragic accidental death of a popular 72-year-old man. The town witnessed its biggest funeral in years as hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their last respects to the late Joe Walsh, Carrickbeg.