Josh Hader, a 28-year old man from Guthrie, Oklahoma, had a sore neck so he tried to stretch it out and accidentally popped it. Immediately, the left side of his body went numb. Afterwards, Hader went to their kitchen to grab an ice pack, but he could no longer walk straight.
"I kept walking at almost a 45-degree [angle] to the left," he said.
Hader had a serious stroke after he cracked his neck, and doctors say that it is because of what he did that triggered the illness. Dr. Vance McCollom, who attended him at Mercy Hospital, said that the stroke that Hader suffered was life changing but it could have been worse.
"When he popped his neck, he tore arteries that go to the bone of the neck, where the neck joins the skull at the base of the brain," he said. "The way he twisted the neck caused a bisection."
Hader's father-in-law rushed him to the emergency room, where nurses administered him TPA to break up the clots. After the procedure, he was transferred to Mercy Hospital and was in the intensive-care unit for four days before he was transferred to inpatient therapy.
"When he arrived, Hader had numbness, weakness, double vision, and his left side was numb," McCollom said.
Hader's arterial gram showed that his artery was affected because of the tear and it was the cause of the stroke. "He wasn't able to walk straight. He kept falling down," McCollom said.
After more than a month in rehab, Hader is now living independently.
"Currently, I can walk without a walker or cane, but I get tired much faster than before. My balance is still a little off, but it's not terrible," he said.
"My left side tingles a little and feels heavier than it used to. I also don't have as much control of that side as I used to. My right side doesn't feel sharp pain or hot/cold."
"I'm good emotionally. Like I said before, it's still a struggle walking long distances, but it's getting much better," he said.
Hader also had to wear an eye patch for weeks because a nerve was injured which caused weakness to one of the muscles in his eye. He also said that one of the side effects of the stroke was hiccups.
"Those were terrible. Literally, two weeks of straight hiccups since the stroke happened. Towards the end, they would make it almost impossible for me to breathe for a few seconds, and that was scary," he said.
McCollom said that the hiccups became one of his side effects because the stroke took place at the base of Hader's brain. The doctor also said that this is not the first time that he handled a patient like Hader.
"We have patients coming to the hospital with more serious stuff, the majority was due to chiropractic manipulation, where their necks were cracked by a professional," he said, before suggesting: "If I want to pop my neck, I just pop it side to side. I don't twist it."
