Brian Dietzen’s stroke explained

Fans of the CBS crime procedural NCIS are more than familiar with the lovable chief medical examiner Jimmy Palmer, played by the actor Brian Dietzen. While he’s seen countless deaths as his character on the show, Dietzen revealed he had a close call of his own after a stroke back in 2020 and almost died.

Dietzen opened up about the experience during an interview with Variety. “I had a dual embolic stroke in my cerebellum,” he said. The incident made his hands curl up, and he called it “terrifying.” When he was being rushed to the hospital, he thought he wouldn’t have an acting career anymore because he wasn’t able to speak.

He gives credit to the Apple Watch for saving his life. When the stroke came on, he said he “was on the floor of my bathroom, throwing up, and I pulled out my phone and I was like, ‘Oh sh**, I can’t use my fingers.’ And so I said, ‘Hey, Siri, call Kelly,’ and called my wife and I said, ‘I need help.’”

Even just trying to talk made him sound like he was chewing on marbles, but he was still able to voice to text a call to 911. Being so close to death, he said, really made him look at life a different way. He said:

“‘I don’t think there’s much that I’ve left undone, because everyone that I love knows that I love them’ — that sort of thing,” he said about the incident, but then he forced himself to stop thinking so negatively. Once he felt like he got his mind in “the right place,” he got movement back in his hands and his tongue. He was in an MRI tube, and the doctors told him to stay still because he kept trying to say tongue twisters.

The clot eventually cleared, and he considered himself blessed that he “stayed really healthy, and had a really healthy cardiovascular system.” Doctors were puzzled as to why he had the stroke in the first place, considering he was a healthy man in his early 40s.

After some tests, doctors found out he had a “hole between my atrial chambers that needed to be closed.” Because of the recent stroke, he was not anesthetized during surgery and got to watch it on an overhead screen. After the surgery he was able to get back to work fairly quickly, but then the pandemic shut everything down.

One thing he promised himself during his ordeal, when he thought he wasn’t going to be able to talk ever again, was that he wanted to write. “I realized there’s no reason why I can’t tell really great stories and branch out and still do what I love on this thing, and be surrounded by these people that have supported me and that I support and love.”