What police officers thought was a routine traffic stop turned out to be a blessing in disguise for 58-year-old Tamara Palmer.
On December 2, 2022, police officers were called to a highway in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for reports of a potential drunk driver.
It was on the highway that the two responding officers from the Mount Pleasant Police Department observed Palmer erratically hitting the curb, and veering in and out of lanes multiple times. Officers pulled Palmer over and questioned her, but feared something was wrong after determining she had no drugs or alcohol in her system.
“I told them I [had] a bad headache and I lost my vision for a few seconds,” Palmer told Good Morning America. “And then [they realized] something really medically was not right with me.”
The two responding officers requested an ambulance for Palmer after deciding she was “possibly having a medical episode,” the police department wrote in a Facebook post.
Palmer said an MRI at the hospital detected a tumor in her brain. She said doctors told her it was possible the tumor had been growing in her head for 35 years. Due to the size and location of the tumor, doctors rushed Palmer into surgery.
Now recovered, Palmer said she has returned to work as an assistant teacher.
Palmer said she is grateful to have been given a second chance at life, thanks to the quick thinking of the police officers who pulled her over that day.