COSTERFIELD man Colin Leask had been busily working his way through his daily tasks in February, delivering hay to another rural property before heading back home for tea.
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A persistent headache had been nagging him all day, but he expected it to pass.
"I thought I'd just go home and have an ice cream in bed," he said.
The recent months and years had been draining, as he continued a long-running dispute with organisations over the contamination from the Costerfield gold and antimony mine.
The stress was taking its toll.
As Colin settled down on his bed at 10pm on Shrove Tuesday this year, he prepared to eat his ice cream to ease that headache as Grey's Anatomy played in the background.
His partner Pamela King noticed the ice cream melting as it rested on Colin, untouched.
He was suffering a stroke.
The following frantic four hours, and resulting weeks, were to be the most stressful - and in the end the luckiest - of the couple's lives.
Ms King called their neighbour GP Dr Jane Harris and her husband Neil, who quickly drove the five kilometres to the house.
Dr Harris arrived after Colin had already gone through one seizure, meaning he was likely to have bleeding on the brain rather than a blood clot.
She provided care for Colin as they waited 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, rolling him onto his side to prevent him from biting his tongue and keeping his airways open.
Dr Harris said it was hard to see him pulling through, as she urged him to start breathing again.
"I said to Neil, 'Do you realise you're going to lose a friend tonight'," she said.
"I gave him a five per cent chance to live.
"It was a horrible night."
The ambulance had to navigate the rural roads and contest with kangaroos, slowing its progress.
When Heathcote ambulance branch team manager Michael Holden arrived, Colin had gone through four seizures.
"When you find someone having seizures after a stroke, it's not good," Michael said.
"The immediate treatment is to cease the seizures and to help with breathing, returning oxygen to the brain.
"You have to get them to a hospital that can perform thrombolysis within six hours."
With a helicopter unable to be dispatched, they took him to the Caltex in Heathcote where they met with a MICA paramedic, who cared for Colin as they took him to Bendigo Health.
Mr Holden stayed with Colin until he saw the scans of his brain, unconvinced he would survive.
If Colin did survive, both Dr Harris and Mr Holden were sure he would have suffered neurological damage from the stroke.
He was airlifted to the Alfred Hospital that night and remained unconscious until Thursday.
When Colin regained consciousness, he could talk and had mobility in his arms soon after.
It came as a surprise to doctors, who were gathered around taking notes.
Colin said he was just as surprised to wake up in the Alfred.
"The next thing I knew, there were tubes hanging out of me and a woman on the phone next to me."
Despite the rapid recovery, Colin encountered renal failure on the Saturday, reigniting fears for the future.
He could not recognise his surroundings and had limited mobility, as Ms King worried the recent stroke was taking full toll.
He overcame the condition after three days, and after two weeks at the Alfred and two weeks at Bendigo Health, he was able to return home.
"I always just walked, so when I was in the hospital and no one was around, I would just walk and walk," Colin said.
"I'm slowly getting back into it."
Now, two months later, he is returning to almost full duties on the farm at Costerfield.
Dr Harris said she still can't believe his recovery.
"After a stoke like that, they can have all of these problems like difficulties using their hands, or problems with speech," she said.
"But it's just a miracle to see him the way he is, it's a real success story."
