(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. -A daily trip to the grocery store becomes a life or death moment for one Spokane man.
Richard O’Boyle says he’s a regular at the Yoke’s on North Foothills.
“I figured I'd get some numbers to see if I got lucky,” he says.
He won there last year, “so they know me pretty good,” he says.
But on Sunday, when he went, he didn’t feel right.
“I couldn't figure out what I was doing. I all of sudden went kind of confused,” he says. “Something was obviously wrong.”
And that something is what Yoke’s employee Katie Millhorn noticed as she was helping him check out.
“Everything he was doing was really slowed down. And normally he's really sharp and with it,” Millhorn says.
Concerned, she called her manager. He went out to the parking lot to check on O’Boyle and saw that he was struggling. They were able to get O’Boyle’s son over to help him and O’Boyle went to the hospital for a stroke.
Now, O’Boyle is out of the hospital and is doing much better.
“I'm really glad that he's doing okay and we were able to help him and get him taken care of that day,” Millhorn says.
And even though O’Boyle went through that, he still considers himself lucky.
“Thank the Lord I was at Yoke's because they took care of me,” he says. “They've always been there.”
O’Boyle says the next time he goes to the store he’s going to make sure to thank them for all their help. For information on how to recognize signs of a stroke, click here.