The first sign something was wrong came on a snowy morning in January, when Connetquot High School senior Quintin Folkes fell while dressing for school. The second was when he forgot his phone, and didn’t seem to care he’d left it behind.
As it turns out, Folkes — a 17-year-old student athlete with no prior health issues — was having a stroke.
Around 1 in 400,000 children each year suffer a stroke caused by a large vessel occlusion, or a blood clot blocking a major artery in the brain, according to a 2022 study published by JAMA Neurology. That’s what happened to Folkes, who had surgery to remove the clot later that day.
The teen typically starts his day with a free period in the library, where, on that snowy day in January, office assistant Gina Ferreira, 65, Sayville, noticed Folkes was behaving oddly. He was stumbling, she said, and when he signed in, his handwriting was illegible.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A Connetquot High School senior survived a stroke this winter, thanks to quick action from his teachers and doctors.
- 1 in 400,000 children suffer a stroke caused by a blood clot blocking a major artery in the brain each year, according to a 2022 medical study.
- Doctors stress that speed is of the essence when treating a stroke. “Time is brain,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Daniel Santos.
“I watched him leave the library to go to second period and I saw him stumble a little bit again,” she said. “That’s when I told Cheryl, the librarian, that something was wrong.”
Concerned, librarian Cheryl Carr, 63, of East Patchogue, looked up his second period teacher and pulled her out of class to tell her to keep an eye on him.
Folkes had his head on the desk, Carr said, but later, when he looked up, the teacher noticed part of his face seemed to be drooping. That’s when she walked him down to the nurse’s office, who, after consulting with the principal, decided to call an ambulance.
Folkes was transported to South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, where he…
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