On a hot day in July two years ago, Linda Puftik-Lindsey came home from her midnight shift at the steel mill. But instead of going to sleep, she decided to work in the yard.

At about 12:30 p.m., lacking sleep and not drinking enough water, the now 53-year-old Chesterton steel worker felt her body shudder.

"I felt my right arm just fall down to my side," she remembers. "I picked it up with my left hand. I said, 'uh, oh, I'm having a stroke."

Sitting down on the back porch, Puftik-Lindsey tried to call out to her husband, who was riding a lawn mower, but her screams were inaudible. She realized she had lost function of everything on her right side, including her ability to talk.

Crawling into the house to call 9-1-1, she knew she wouldn't be able to communicate with the person on the other line so she attempted to scream once again, this time finally getting the attention of her husband.

Shortly thereafter, the ambulance arrived to take her swiftly to Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, where Neurologist Dr. Richard Silberman gave her a series of tests -- CT scan, blood work, blood pressure and history -- and quickly examined the data to determine she was a candidate for a clot-busting drug known as tissue plasminogen activator (tPA).

If able to be administered within three hours of ischemic stroke symptoms, tPA can dissolve the blood clot that is restricting blood flow to the brain, reducing the effects of the stroke and preventing or reducing permanent disability. In Puftik-Lindsey's case, she was able to receive the treatment within the three-hour window.

Over the next two or three hours, Puftik-Lindsey sat and waited for the drug to work, repeatedly trying to move her right fingers, arm and leg until finally regaining motion. Her speech disability persisted a bit longer, as she struggled to count and recite the alphabet in a desperate attempt to form the words trapped inside her.

In the months that followed, Puftik-Lindsey attended speech therapy and eventually regained her ability to communicate. Some of the first words she uttered came in the form of warnings to others about the signs of stroke and the importance of getting immediate medical attention for a brain attack that could have debilitated her for life.

Puftik-Lindsey reiterates how critical it is for family members to be educated about stroke symptoms because the individual is often unable to communicate and precious minutes can be lost in the panic.

"If you get there in enough time," she says, "you can get most of your life back."

As living proof of that statement, Puftik-Lindsey has fully regained her physical ability and carries on a conversation with seemingly little difficulty two years later, except for a few multi-syllable words which she utters slowly and deliberately.

"I'm happy I can speak at all," she says.

Linda Puftik-Lindsey

Diagnosis/Definition: An ischemic stroke, also known as a brain attack, occurs when a blood clot blocks the flow of blood to the brain.

Symptoms: According to Medline Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, the following symptoms are a medical emergency: "sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg (especially on one side of the body); sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech; sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes; sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination; sudden headache with no known cause."

Physician: Neurologist Dr. Richard Silberman, treated Puftik-Lindsey when she arrived by ambulance at Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso.

Treatment: Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a thrombolytic agent, or clot-busting drug, which can reduce the amount of damage from an ischemic stroke if administered within three hours of the onset of symptoms.

What you should know: Silberman says future treatment of stroke is moving towards a six-hour window and using anti-thrombolytic drugs intra-arterially.

Also, the speed of treatment will be improved with stroke protocols that begin with the paramedics. But he emphasizes that the key to immediate and successful treatment lies with the patient recognizing the emergency, and getting to the hospital at the slightest sign of unexplained numbness, tingling, speech disability, incoordination or weakness. He says stroke symptoms should be perceived as serious as that of a heart attack.