Thrombectomy: ‘My treatment was a miracle’ says stroke patient

When Gemma O’Hara woke up in the night with “intense pain” in her neck, sickness and vertigo she knew something was “not right”.

The 40-year-old, who had just come back from holiday, had suffered a brain stem stroke.

Gemma was able to have a thrombectomy, which removes blood clots and restores blood flow to the brain, a procedure she has said is a “miracle treatment” that has enabled her to recover well.

Northern Ireland’s regional thrombectomy service, which had only been available between 08:00 and 17:00 is now operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week after a £5m investment through Stormont’s Programme for Government (PfG) Elective Care funding.

Gemma, from Ballymena in County Antrim, said the expansion is “amazing” because of the difference the treatment made to her recovery.

“You have to get treated so fast. You can’t let time go past when it’s to do with your brain,” she said.

“If I didn’t get it in time I wouldn’t be the way I am now.”

The mother-of three had the stroke, external in September 2025 and said that, while her symptoms were not classic stroke symptoms, she knew she needed medical help.

By the time she arrived at the Antrim Area Hospital, she had numbness, could not walk or talk and felt “locked in my body”.

She was scanned and given thrombolysis – clot-busting medication – before being transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast for a thrombectomy.

Gemma said that within minutes of having her procedure she was “sitting up, back to myself again” and waiting for her family to arrive.

“It’s a miracle treatment because I was so unwell and for something that can happen fairly quickly like that, and to recover so well, it’s amazing,” she said.