As I looked for stories to share on a slow New Year’s Eve, I came across a long but intriguing piece from one of the USA TODAY Network’s smaller sites, the Kitsap (County) Sun in Bremerton, Washington.
State troopers had jailed a woman who lived on the east side of the Puget Sound in Edmonds for DUI after she drove to a ferry terminal on the west side of the sound, ran over a curb and acted confused. She failed a field sobriety test, but a Breathalyzer test showed no signs of alcohol.
The topic was stunning. Imagine having a stroke, not understanding what was happening and not getting help from people who are supposed to recognize its signs.
Treatments for stroke work best if they begin within the first three hours of symptoms. In the most severe cases, that lack of treatment can be fatal.
Even though the original story took readers step by step through exhaustive research, it didn’t have that important information to act fast and didn’t tell readers what a stroke looks like.
Because the original story had no video, I chose to tell national readers about the signs of a stroke at the top through an explanatory video and at the end with a tips box.
I shortened the reporter’s research tracing the woman’s five-day odyssey.
But because the locations were an important part of her journey, I commissioned a map from our graphics department to help those unfamiliar with the Seattle metro area. It also served to mark a boundary between the story and the tips.
