Julie Chin, an anchor for Tulsa, Oklahoma, NBC affiliate KJRH, was anchoring a live broadcast on September 3 when she began to experience difficulty speaking.
Chin apologized when she began having issues reading the teleprompter and threw it to the station’s meteorologist. “Something is going on with me this morning and I apologize to everybody,” she said at the time.
Chin later shared an update on Facebook, writing that her doctors believe she suffered the “beginnings of a stroke” while on the air.
“The episode seemed to have come out of nowhere,” the post began, noting things spiraled within minutes. “First, I lost partial vision in one eye. A little bit later my hand and arm went numb. Then, I knew I was in big trouble when my mouth would not speak the words that were right in front of me on the teleprompter.”
Chin said she “tried to steer the show forward, but the words just wouldn’t come,” and her colleagues dialed 911. She was hospitalized for several days while undergoing multiple medical tests.
Chin says she will be “just fine” and is using her incident to educate others on the importance of immediate intervention. “I’ve learned that it’s not always obvious when someone has a stroke, and action is critical. This acronym helps identify the symptoms to look for: BE FAST and then if needed, be fast and call 911,” she wrote.
BE FAST was developed by the American Stroke Association; each letter represents a different symptom associated with strokes, such as “face drooping” or “arm weakness.”
Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death for women in the United States. One in 5 women between the ages of 55 and 75 will have a stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.