{"id":527790,"date":"2026-03-09T00:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527790\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T00:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:58:16","slug":"sam-newman-afl-great-suffers-mini-stroke-and-thanks-partner-sue-stanley-for-quick-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527790\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Newman: AFL great suffers \u2018mini-stroke\u2019 and thanks partner Sue Stanley for quick thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

AFL great Sam Newman has revealed he recently suffered a major health scare and \u201cmightn\u2019t be here\u201d, if not for his partner.<\/p>\n

In a YouTube video posted on Sunday night, Newman, 80, is seen slurring his words after experiencing two mini-strokes, also known as transient ischemic attacks (TIA).<\/p>\n

The Geelong legend has since spent 10 days in Melbourne\u2019s The Alfred Hospital undergoing a battery of tests and surgery to widen a narrowed carotid artery in his neck that sent blood clots to his brain.<\/p>\n

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Newman said it was lucky the TIA happened while he was with partner Sue Stanley, Olympian and fitness guru, and also that he was at home in Port Melbourne and not travelling, otherwise the outcome may have been very different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suffered a medical episode and if Sue hadn\u2019t been with me and summonsed the help that she did, well I mightn\u2019t be here,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n

The former Footy Show host and Stanley filmed the scary incident and the health journey that followed, starting just after they called triple-0, in a 10-minute video shared online.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Newman and Sue Stanley discuss his health scare. Credit: YouTube<\/p>\n

The video shows Newman slurring his words and \u201cspeaking like Daffy Duck\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little fleck of blood went into my brain, and I lost speech temporarily, and I lost strength in both my arms, but that was very short-lived, five minutes,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had a stroke, I have had two little strokes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In typical Newman style, though, his sense of humour was still in full force as he was rushed to hospital and underwent numerous tests, including an MRI.<\/p>\n

Just before surgery, he said doctors had to do a small procedure, \u201cthis one is to actually see if I\u2019ve actually got a brain\u201d.<\/p>\n

The surgery proved a success and Newman was released home on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Newman was full of praise for hospital staff and the public hospital system, saying they do \u201cgreat work\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFL great Sam Newman has revealed he recently suffered a major health scare and \u201cmightn\u2019t be here\u201d, if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,588,85],"class_list":["post-527790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}