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A paramedic was left partially paralyzed after cracking her neck triggered a stroke at age 23. Natalie Kuniciki was watching a movie in bed after a night out when she stretched her neck and heard a loud "crack."
She thought little of it and went to sleep, but woke up just 15 minutes later unable to move her left leg. When she tried to get up to go to the toilet at her flat in West Hampstead, London, she collapsed to the floor.
She called an ambulance and a CT scan confirmed Kuniciki had suffered a stroke. Medics said when she cracked her neck, her vertebral artery - a major artery in the spine - had burst causing a blood clot to form in her brain and triggered a stroke.
Kuniciki's left side was almost completely paralyzed and she spent almost a month in the hospital as she tried to regain movement in her leg, arm and hand.
"I wasn't even trying to crack my neck. I just moved and it happened," she said. "I'm a paramedic and I didn't ring 999 for 10 minutes because I thought it was too unlikely it would be a stroke when I should have known much better. Every minute more of your brain cells are dying so don't ever discount a stroke just because someone is young."
Kuniciki, who moved from Canberra, Australia, to join the London Ambulance Service in December 2017, said: “I was in bed watching stuff with a friend when it happened. I stretched my neck and I could just hear this ‘crack, crack, crack.'"
"My friend asked 'Was that your neck?’ but all my joints crack quite a bit so I didn’t think anything of it. I just laughed," she said. “I fell asleep and when I woke up about 15 minutes later. I wanted to go to the bathroom but I could feel this leg in the bed and I was asking my friend if he could move his leg."
“He told me it was my leg but I was a bit tipsy so I wasn’t taking anything seriously and just thought ‘that’s a bit weird,'" she said. “I got up and tried to walk to the bathroom and I was swaying everywhere. I looked down and realized I wasn’t moving my left leg at all then I fell to the floor."
Woman left partially paralyzed after neck cracking triggers stroke
A paramedic was left partially paralyzed after cracking her neck triggered a stroke at age 23.
www.foxnews.com