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CORAL GABLES, FLA. (WSVN) - A Coral Gables Police officer is recovering at home after he suffered a stroke almost a month after he tested positive for COVID-19.
In his 32 years in law enforcement, Officer Robert Wright has faced many dangers, but surviving COVID-19, and most recently a major stroke, has proven to be a danger he’s never faced before.
“I came back positive on April 18, about a month before. I had the stroke on May 16,” Wright said.
Wright said he was getting his daughter’s car serviced at a Goodyear in the Kendall area when he first felt the stroke symptoms.
“I heard the manager call out my name several times, and I couldn’t discern who was calling me,” Wright said, “so I finally stumbled up to the manager’s desk, and I heard somebody say, ‘This man looks like he needs some help.'”
The manager quickly called 911, and that’s when he was told he was having a stroke.
“They told me I was having a stroke, and my speech was slurred, and I couldn’t move the left side of my body very well, and I was in denial,” Wright said. “‘This can’t be happening. I’m too healthy.'”
Wright, 57, has no underlying health issues. He was rushed to Baptist Hospital and into surgery.
“So, we unblocked the blood vessel, and this way, the blood flow is restored to that part of the brain,” neurosurgeon Dr. Guilherme Dabus said. “That part of the brain that was about to die actually, you know, is preserved, and that patient has a meaningful recovery.”
Doctors said his stroke is a very common type of a stroke but added there’s a possibility there could be a connection to COVID-19.
“We know that COVID-19, in fact, can facilitate strokes, but we don’t know exactly the full mechanism,” Dabus said. “We don’t know why some patients develop and some other patients don’t, but we definitely know that it can happen.”
Wright said he’s thankful for his rapid recovery and is grateful to be alive, and now, he’s ready to return to duty.
“I haven’t returned to work just yet, but that’s imminent,” Wright said. “I completed six or seven weeks of therapy, and I feel that I’m almost back to my old self.”
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