Retired schoolteacher Betty Raulston had not been to a hospital in 40 years when she collapsed in her Bridgeport, Ala. home in October 2005. “I felt a numbing sensation on my right side, down my leg; I couldn’t see, couldn’t walk, couldn’t make a fist and felt nauseated,” she recalled.

When paramedics arrived they called LIFE FORCE, telling her husband, “We’re not going to take any chances; she’s going to Erlanger.”

At Erlanger Betty learned she had a 95% blockage in a major brain artery and had suffered a mini-stroke. In her case, clot-dissolving drugs didn’t help and brain surgery was not a viable option. A second mini-stroke brought her back to Erlanger within weeks of the first, leaving Betty and her family worried about the future.

They soon learned the FDA had just approved a new device which could be inserted into one’s brain artery to restore blood flow. Very few specialists in very few hospitals performed this intricate procedure, but Betty Raulston was in the right place, at the right time – at Erlanger.

On November 30, 2005 she became the first person in the southeast to undergo this breakthrough stroke treatment, at the skilled hands of interventional radiologist, Dr. Blaise Baxter, and neurologist, Dr. Thomas Devlin.

Grateful for her improved health, Betty says, “I feel so blessed and so thankful. There’s some wonderful treatment at Erlanger.”