He arrived in Bathurst last Friday with his mates for the Bathurst 1000, first stopping for dinner at the Oxford Hotel’s B-Town BBQ. 

After coming back from the toilet, he collapsed and fell unconscious.

His friends had no idea what had happened.

Oxford Hotel licensee Ash Lyons was informed of the incident by staff and it was the series of decisions he made from there that prevented a tragedy.

Mr Truman had suffered a blood clot on his brain, which resulted in him having a stroke.

But at the time, no one knew what was going on.

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Staff were treating Mr Truman and Mr Lyons was concerned that there might not be enough time for an ambulance to arrive and paramedics to get upstairs.

So he made a decision that literally proved life-saving.

“I made a judgement call that we’d get him to hospital as quick as we can,” Mr Lyons remembered this week.

“We’re trained not to do that, but there’s always extenuating circumstances. I was just really worried about the vital time we would waste.

“We tried to get to hospital as quick as possible. The traffic was really bad and one of his friends was holding him [Mr Truman] up.

“By the time we got to the hospital, he was green, sweating and having massive fits.

“I pushed him into hospital on a wheelchair.”

Being so busy across the Bathurst 1000 weekend, Mr Lyons had little time to dwell on what happened.

It was on Monday morning that he received a phone call from Mr Truman.

“He got on the phone and said, ‘I want you to know that I had a blood clot on my brain and because of that blood clot I had a stroke’,” Mr Lyons said. 

“‘They told me at hospital, if you [Mr Lyons] didn't make the call to get me in the car and take me to hospital and waited for an ambulance, I’d be dead.’” 

Mr Lyons said Mr Truman was flown from Bathurst to Sydney and is still pretty sick.

“He’s still got a long road to recovery.”