Dad survives rare thunderclap stroke
A St Albans Park dad is lucky to be alive after he suffered a rare type of stroke that is usually fatal.
Father-of-four Bill Hartshorne was fishing at the Barwon River in April 2022 when he got a “thunderclap headache”.
“I sat down, had a drink of water, but it didn’t go away,” he said.
“As I was heading home, it was getting worse. I started to get tingles up my arm and started feeling nauseous.”
At home, the now 46-yearold looked in the mirror and saw his face was grey.
“My speech had also started to slur,” he said. “My wife said I wasn’t making any sense and my face had drooped.”
Mr Hartshorne’s wife Sian, who was nine months’ pregnant at the time, rushed him to Epworth Geelong’s emergency department, where doctors thought he was suffering from a migraine. A CT scan showed an internal bleed in his brain, and he had suffered a stroke.
The former prison guard was transported to the stroke unit at St Vincent’s in Melbourne.
He had a second CT scan – which showed the bleeding had settled – and a cerebral angiogram, which was used to examine blood vessels in the head.
The procedure found he had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage, where a blood vessel in his brain had burst.
“There is nothing they can do for that, you either make it or you don’t,” Mr Hartshorne said. “I had a one-in-200,000 chance of leaving hospital with no brain damage.”
Mr Hartshorne spent two weeks at St Vincent’s recovering. “(A nurse) said people that have the stroke I had don’t usually come into hospital because they usually don’t make it,” he said.
“Doctors said the fact I was awake and talking (after a significant bleed) was quite amazing … I was very lucky.”
After being discharged from hospital, Mr Hartshorne rested at home, before heading back to work as a corrections officers at Port Phillip Prison, about three months after the haemorrhage.
But he suffered with constant fatigue and joint pain in his arms and legs.
“I was struggling, I was working two days then having to take a day off,” he said.
He then ended up in hospital with a bowel infection in May last year, where doctors told him he needed to slow down.
“I was meant to rest and recover after the stroke, but it’s hard when you have a young family,” he said. “I was going to work every day in a prison that is very rough.”
Mr Hartshorne resigned from work in August 2023, and now receives income protection payments to cover the cost of daily expenses and bills.
But he said constant fatigue and “throbbing” joint pain had worsened since he left work.
“I have to rest and recover, but it’s hard with young kids,” he said. “I’m in constant pain, I can barely get out of bed.
Mr Hartshorne was known in his community for his extravagant Halloween display at his home.
“I haven’t been able to decorate the house (in recent years) because I don’t have the energy,” he said.
“We’re trying to stay positive. I have to try and work out a way to get better.”