Gurcharan Dhindsa’s Story
Gurcharan Singh Dhindsa remembers an intense toothache. He felt unsteady as he walked down the stairs at his local Gurdwara. The 81-year old Abbotsford man somehow drove home and lay down on his bed. When his wife and granddaughter checked on him, he could no longer speak. He fell over when they tried to get him up. Unbeknownst to the family, a large clot had blocked one of the major arteries providing blood flow to the brain, triggering a potentially devastating and deadly stroke.
Hank Erickson’s Story
Hank Erickson was already very familiar with Royal Columbian Hospital in the fall of 2014, when he was rushed there by ambulance for what turned out to be a small vessel stroke. For two decades previously, he had walked its corridors daily, visiting staff and patients as the hospital’s chaplain. It was during that time he first encountered a patient who would eventually be considered one of the country’s greatest heroes of the 20th century: Terry Fox.