B.C. man waits 9 hours to see a doctor after suffering stroke while driving

A Tsawwassen, B.C., man says he could have died waiting for an ambulance after suffering a stroke.

Layne French, 36, was driving through the Massey Tunnel on March 13 when the stroke happened.

He said he was sitting in some traffic when he coughed, then felt a pain on his right side and what felt like a kick to the back of the head.

“At first I thought it was just an optical illusion,” he said, while he attempted to blink away the moving ground.

“But then it just kept going and I was like, ‘This is not good. This is not good’. And as I’m driving, I start to feel (the right) side of my body freeze. I’ve lost control of it.

“And I just feel it starting to slide and (slump down). And now I can’t tell if it was or not, but I had no control over it. And then my eyes were just slowly drifting towards the passenger floorboard. And I remember this vividly thinking in my head, ‘This is not good. What’s happening’.”

French said he was going 80 km/h, and he was in the Massey Tunnel with traffic all around him.

“Right at the base of my neck, I hear this ticking sound, tick, tick, tick,” he said.

French said this caused his vision to drift and snap back about three or four times.

“What’s going on here, it’s total fear,” he said.

Somehow, he said he made it out of the Massey Tunnel but the entire right side of his body was frozen and he started applying the brake, causing cars behind to honk.

“Eventually I’ve stopped and the person behind me is laying on the horn,” French said.

“And I just tried to reach with (my right) arm and it’s completely frozen.

“Eventually… I grab (and) I squeezed the gearshift as hard as I can, slamming (it) into park. I couldn’t get hazards on and couldn’t do anything. And then I knew I was in trouble in trying to turn it