- Steve Adsley, 62, collapsed whilst in the bathroom and ended up paralyzed
- Unable to get up, he had to yell for help – but his cries went unanswered
- He ended up drinking water from the toilet for four days until it ran out
- A neighbor finally heard him shouting exactly a week after he suffered the stroke
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A 62-year-old man from Canada managed to survive for a week after suffering a stroke by drinking water from the toilet bowl.
Steve Adsley from Dawson Creek, British Columbia collapsed in his bathroom and was paralyzed down his left side.
Despite his cries for help nobody heard him. He ended up having to drink from the bowl of the lavatory until he was found by a neighbor seven days later.
Survival: Steve Adsley from Canada who suffered a stroke ended up being stuck in the washroom and living off of nothing but toilet water for a week
Mr Adsley says that when he suffered his sroke he was paralyzed on his left side. His daughter, Melani (right) only found out a week later after calling the hospital
Mr Adsley, who lives in a condo unit says he was going about his usual routine when all of a sudden he fell.
Jammed between the vanity and the toilet, the retired financial controller and father of three said he struggled to move his body but his entire left side was paralyzed.
He yelled for help to his neighbors, but said he knew they were at work.
‘I laid there, tried to get up. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t put pressure on my leg, my arm,’ he told CBC.
He says that he had no idea what was happening.
Melani Adsley speaks of her guilt over not sending someone to check on her father sooner. It was one full week before her dad was discovered laying on the floor of the toilet
Mr Adsley says the entire situation was very frustrating because nobody could hear him scream and he couldn’t get up to flush the toilet either
‘I couldn’t get on all fours because I had no feeling in my arm or my leg. ‘Later on that night I figured out my problem was water. I didn’t have anything to drink. So I unscrewed the bolts from the toilet, turned it into a little cup and could reach with one arm, just far enough in — and could put a little cup in the water in the bottom of the toilet bowl. So I drank that.’
Mr Adsley says he didn’t think he would survive the ordeal.
He said he continued his yelling but grew tired, noting it’s not possible to yell for 24 hours.
‘You can only yell for a couple hours and you lose your voice,’ he said. ‘You get too tired to yell.’
Realizing his best chances of being heard were in the early mornings and evenings when his neighbors were leaving for or returning from work and were outside in the parking lot, Adsley said he waited for those windows of opportunity.
‘I would yell, ‘Help, I need help,’ as loud with ‘help’ as I possibly could, and I’d yell like that for about 15 minutes and then your voice gets weak,’ he told The Province.
He sais that he is now moving to live closer to his daughter, Melani, in Vancouver so she can check up on him easier
Weeks on since the incident, he has almost full recovered with feeling on his left side. Doctors say he should make a full recovery
He could hear his neighbors in the parking lot, and sometimes even their movements in the building, but said he felt like he was being drowned out.
‘Yeah, after about Day 3, I figured I’m done,’ he said. ‘No one’s going to find me. I’m going to end up dying of thirst, I’m going to run out of water and I’m never going to be found.’
At the end of the fourth day, Mr Adsley ran out of water because he couldn’t reach the lever to flush the toilet but he continued to yell.
He continued to shout at the top of his voice every day, but it wasn’t until seven days had passed that a neighbor, Diane Young, heard his screams.
‘I was so glad that I actually heard him,’ said Ms Young.
She called 911 in order for him to be taken to hospital, severely dehydrated.
Weeks since the incident, he has almost full recovered with feeling on his left side. Doctors say he should make a full recovery.
Mr Adsley says that the entire episode has forced him to re-examine how he lives his life and particular lifestyle choices such as weight and smoking
Realizing his best chances of being heard were in the early mornings and evenings when his neighbors were leaving for or returning from work and were outside in the parking lot, Adsley said he waited for those windows of opportunity
‘The worst part was being unable to move because you can’t move,’ he said. ‘People say, go get your phone, call an ambulance. My phone’s laying on my kitchen table 20 feet away — I can’t get to it!’
His daughter has spoken of her guilt at not discovering her father sooner or deciding to send someone to check on him
It was only after she had not heard from her father for the entire week that she decided to send a local friend around to check on him.
When there was no answer at his door, she decided to call the local hospital. Her father had been taken there just hours earlier.
‘I felt very guilty, not calling him or being there, because I’d been thinking about going up to visit him earlier,’ said Adsley choking back tears.
As a result of the incident, Mr Adsley has decided to move closer to Vancouver so he can be closer to his family.
‘I’ve since learned that what I had was a blood clot in my head. That’s what caused my stroke,’ he said, adding he had all the risk factors for a stroke: high blood pressure, a two-pack-a-day smoking habit and he was overweight.
He says he learned a lot about himself during the week-long ordeal.
‘You’re a lot tougher than you think,’ he said. “Hang in there. You can survive almost anything if you put your mind to it.’
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