MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – A “fit and healthy” car mechanic who got vaccinated to keep his job suffered a stroke just two days after his second Pfizer shot. Peter Lee, 36, received the shot on October 7th and developed a massive headache soon afterward but was told by staff at the vaccine clinic to “just take some Panadol”.

Two days later, while out walking with his family on his son’s second birthday, he collapsed. He was rushed to Box Hill Hospital where he was diagnosed with a stroke on his right brain capsule due to blood clots. Lee told News Australia that he is now in financial hardship and says he feels abandoned by the government.

Lee spent two weeks in hospital and rehab – where he was prevented from seeing his family due to COVID-19 restrictions – and still requires assistance from his wife with day-to-day activities such as showering and getting dressed.

“I was given a date until the end of November – if you’re not vaccinated then you won’t be able to work. Now everyone’s saying, ‘We don’t know what’s causing it so we can’t really do anything for you.’”

Lee and his wife have applied for financial assistance, and he has registered with the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine claims scheme, which is still in development.

Lee, who has no family history of stroke and no previous medical issues, says he is “really angry” that his doctors refused to link his stroke to the vaccine, despite reporting it to Victoria’s SAFEVAC surveillance service.

“You get the sense they’re trying to hide something, you know? You can tell just from their behaviour, the way they’re speaking – if anyone mentions the vaccine, straight away, ‘No, no, no, it’s very rare.’ They just don’t want to talk about it.
Then I asked them again, ‘Are you 100 per cent sure it’s got nothing to do with Pfizer?’
They were saying, ‘We can’t really say because we don’t know what caused the stroke.’ They didn’t want to link it to the vaccine at all. My blood pressure was OK, my cholesterol was OK, I don’t have diabetes, all of the numbers from the charts were within normal range. They just said that in 20 per cent of stroke patients the cause is unknown. They let me go with ‘unknown cause’.”

Lee’s COVID-19 vaccination certificate

Although Lee still has his job, he hasn’t been paid since October. His wife, who works as a hairdresser, has also been unable to earn any money as she has to care for her husband and their son.

“At the moment we’re in financial difficulty.
I just want to be recovered so I can get back to work. That’s my goal for now. Maybe compensation in the future, if they decide to do something about it. But at the moment, I just want to know what caused my stroke.”