Font ResizeSHIRLEY -- Frank Mastrangelo was driving past Johnson's Drive-in on Route 119 in Groton with his children in the back seat in June 2007.
Mastrangelo says he knew his then-10-year-old daughter Cailey and then-7-year-old son A.J. were still yelling, but he could not hear it.
It was the first sign the then-42-year-old Mastrangelo was suffering a stroke.
He was lucky to survive without physical handicaps.
Now healthy, Mastrangelo, who had a second hole in his heart plugged last May, is training to run a second time on former New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi's Tedy's Team in the Boston Marathon, raising money for the American Stroke Association.
Bruschi suffered a stroke when he was 31 years old and eventually returned to play for the Patriots.
"Now that I can do something, I feel I have to do something to raise the education, the awareness issue," Mastrangelo said this week.
Mastrangelo raised $7,000 when he ran the race last year and is trying to raise $5,000 this time.
"That's a lot in this economy," he said.
To contribute to Mastrangelo's fundraising, visit the Web site at www.tedysteam2010.kintera.org/boston/mastrangelo.
Tedy's Team has two goals, said Zack Blackburn, the senior director for the 46-member team at the American Stroke Association.
The team wants to raise funds for the association, but also wants to educate people
"Educating the community and public is really of vital importance to us," he said.
Mastrangelo and Bruschi are examples of how strokes can strike younger people, he said.
Twenty nine percent of all strokes occur in people younger than 65 years old.
There are 700,000 stroke victims in the United States annually, Blackburn said.
"So it's one about every 45 seconds and it's the third leading cause of death in the United States," he said. "About 165,000 people will die from a stroke this year, it's about one every 3.1 minutes."
Mastrangelo's family is proud of the work he is doing to raise awareness of stroke symptoms and he is serving as a role model to their family, said his wife Donna Mastrangelo.
"That's what been very special about it, too, not many kids will have a father like that as a role model," she said. "Obviously, we were scared about the stroke but what he has been doing for stroke (awareness) and running the marathon and the whole experience with the kids has been very special, too."
Mastrangelo has shown a steadfast determination to raise the awareness of strokes since he suffered his.
His hearing returned after about 30 seconds on that June afternoon and he continued driving to Lawrence Academy where Donna Mastrangelo was coaching a girl's basketball team.
That was where he realized there might be a significant problem, said Mastrangelo, who is an athletic trainer at Dexter School in Brookline, and emergency medical technician.
"I got out of the car and my right arm, I thought, was asleep, so I'm doing all this stuff, shaking it," Mastrangelo said. "I'm in full denial."
When he reached for the gymnasium door, Mastrangelo realized his right arm was numb.
It was the one-year anniversary of his father's death from complications of a stroke and Mastrangelo was showing signs of having his own stroke.
