South Florida hospital security guard known as 'stroke whisperer' responsible for saving hundreds of lives
PLANTATION, Fla. — A South Florida hospital security guard is responsible for saving hundreds of people from strokes even though he is not a first responder and does not have a background in medicine.
When visitors walk into the emergency room at HCA Florida Westside Hospital in Plantation, they encounter Joe Nardiello, the security guard.
Visitors see him before they see a nurse or doctor.
Nardiello has been a security guard for 40 years. His job description doesn't require him to help people fill out their forms in the emergency room, but he wants to start talking to patients right away.
"Just talking to someone, sometimes you can see that they're trying to communicate with you, but the words aren't coming out, or you're getting slurred type of speech," Nardiello said.
He starts analyzing a person for signs of a stroke.
"You might have trouble walking because you have no feeling on one side," he said.
At least once a week, he catches one.
"That means a doctor is coming down to do that assessment right away," Nardiello said.
The stroke patient bypasses what can sometimes be an hours-long wait in the ER.
"We know that approximately 2 billion neurons die per minute — that's a lot," said Stroke Coordinator Anna Mejia.
Mejia said minutes make all the difference when someone is having a stroke.
"When I first started here, I just had like a basic understanding," Nardiello said. "When you see people walk into the emergency room, and you watch the medical professionals."
He watched, he took the time to learn, and now the ER calls him the "Stroke Whisperer."
"Joe has saved many lives," Mejia said. "When you're speaking to patients, I like to go see all of our stroke patients and try to get them in the ER, and you're hearing from different patients, you know, the security guard, he recognized my symptoms, he got me to a nurse right away or to the physician, and how much either patients and or the families, they recognize that Joe's heart, it's irreplaceable."