Surviving Stroke Becomes Team Effort

Stroke survivor Tom Shaw would like to thank a theater patron. (By Kate Shaw)

A lot of people helped save Tom Shaw's life in December after he suffered a stroke at the AMC Loews Shirlington movie theater.

There was the theater's manager. She called 911. There were the paramedics. They rushed him to Inova Alexandria Hospital. There were the doctors and nurses at the hospital. They cleared the blockage in his brain.

Tom thanked them all. But there's someone he wasn't able to thank, the person who might be the most important.

Tom had gone on a Tuesday to a 2:15 p.m. screening of "Copying Beethoven," a film about the German composer's Ninth Symphony. The Alexandria resident took his seat just as the previews were starting.

"Immediately when I sat in my seat, the stroke occurred," said Tom, 60. "Everything was like a landslide. The right half of my body just gave down."

He tried to lift his right leg, but it seemed to weigh a ton.

Tom runs a health-care marketing company, and he knew instantly what had happened: An artery somewhere was obstructed, robbing his brain of oxygen-rich blood. He also knew that if he couldn't get to a hospital equipped to treat stroke within three hours, his chances of surviving with his brain intact were slim.

Tom had noticed when he sat down that only three other people had decided to see "Copying Beethoven" that day. He wondered if the cleaning crew might find him after the film was over.

He shifted in his seat and, as luck would have it, two women were seated directly behind him. Now if he could just communicate with them.

"I'm what you call a neck breather," Tom told me. Throat cancer robbed him of his larynx in 1999. He speaks by covering a hole in his throat with his right hand. With that hand out of commission, Tom covered the hole with his left and murmured, "I need medical help. Can you get the manager?"

One of the women rushed off and returned with manager Messelu Weysa. Who was that movie patron? Tom doesn't know, but he's understandably grateful that she went to see "Copying Beethoven" on that particular day and sat in that particular seat.

"I want to at least see that woman again if I could and thank her," he said. (Is it you? E-mail me at kellyj@washpost.com or give me a call at 202-334-5129.)