PARKER, Colo. (KDVR) — Stephen Clair just can’t believe the year he’s having. First, the 48-year-old teacher contracted COVID-19 in the spring and was hospitalized for 11 days.

“I lost 30 pounds on the ventilator,” Clair said.

Then this month he was planning at Chaparral High School in Parker when he began to feel strange.

“I said I can’t see straight. I told her, I said my eyes are going cross eyed,” he said to a co-worker. 

Clair was rushed to Sky Ridge Medical Center. His left side was drooping. But, the whole stroke team was ready when he got there, and Clair was given medication to dissolve the clot.

Doctors are unsure if the stroke was related to the COVID diagnosis. Clair says he’s glad he did not hesitate to go to the hospital. 

“If something like that happens to you, if you can get to the hospital in a three to four hour window, I was able to recover, and I feel like I’m back to practically normal,” he said.

Doctors say, unfortunately, the number of people coming into emergency rooms is still down, presumably due to fears of the coronavirus.

“I think the fear is less, but I think there is some of that lingering fear,” said Dr. David Holland, an emergency medicine doctor at Sky Ridge Medical Center. That’s a concern, Holland said, because with strokes and heart attacks, every minute counts.

Dr. Holland wants patients to know hospitals are taking every precaution.

Stephen is glad he went. “You should go to the hospital no matter what,” he said.