Well-known Barrie businessman, Todd Tuckey, survives brain aneurysm

Well-known Barrie man survives aneurysm Todd Tuckey, Barrie Chamber of Commerce president, suffers a brain aneurysm and recovers quicker than doctors expected.

Barrie, Ont. — He's been known as Lucky Tuckey after winning more than half a million dollars in lottery prizes, but after recently surviving a brain aneurysm, Todd Tuckey feels luckier than ever.

The well-known Barrie businessman was getting ready for his step-daughter's 15th birthday party when he says he suddenly felt a pain in his neck.

"I just finished vacuuming the pool, and I was standing there looking, going I better get the lawn cut, and it was just 'Bam!' It was like somebody just hit me in the back of the neck with a baseball bat," he says.

Tuckey went inside to lay down and cool off, only to wake up five minutes later in a pool of sweat. Then he rushed to the bathroom and vomited.

He says he knew something wasn't right and called his wife, who was out running errands.

"Fortunately, she was close to home, and she said, 'I'm on my way. I'll be right there.'"

He was rushed to the emergency room where doctors at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) diagnosed Tuckey as having pinched a nerve. They froze the back of his neck and sent him home with a morphine prescription.

Two days later, he says he didn't feel any better, and that's when a call to his family doctor resulted in a second trip to the Barrie hospital.

This time, the staff were waiting to run tests.

"I don't remember going back," Tuckey says. "I just remember being in RVH and one of the doctors saying, 'You have a brain aneurysm. We've got an ambulance coming to take you to Toronto."

Doctors at Toronto Western expected Tuckey to spend two weeks in the intensive care unit, but Lucky Tuckey recovered quickly, and doctors discharged him just eight days later.

However, his medical team still doesn't know what caused the aneurysm.

"That's the one thing that still scares me," he says. "They don't know the actual cause. They never did find the source of the bleed."

Tuckey is now recovering comfortably at home.

He recently posted to social media how thankful he was to have survived his ordeal and credited those who have had their COVID-19 vaccines with being a part of his survival.

"Had my aneurysm happened a month earlier, there would not have been space for me in the ICU at Toronto Western Hospital, nor would there have been a nurse available 24 hours a day to care for just me," he wrote in part.