CLEVELAND — Just seven months after Jamal Carr suffered a stroke, he’s taken up salsa dancing.

“I wanted to start living life and experience some of the things I always wanted to do. Salsa was one of them,” Carr said.

Carr had just gotten home from work when he decided to FaceTime his family. Moments before, he had a sharp pain in his left arm.

As he was talking to his daughter, she noticed something was off. She saw that Carr had food in his beard.

“I like to have fun with my kids. We play, joke, we laugh,” he said. But she knew that her dad was too neat for him to have gotten food in his beard intentionally.

He was having trouble speaking as he was on the phone.

He stood up to try to gather himself, but fell on the floor after losing control of his left side. One of his daughters dialed 911 and Carr was taken to the hospital just minutes later.

He’d had an embolic stroke.A small blood clot that traveled into his brain and got stuck in a blood vessel, according to Dr. Rodica Di Lorenzo, vascular neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic.

Di Lorenzo said time is of the essence when it comes to treating strokes.

“The faster we get to a person who suffered a stroke and the faster we can deliver care, the more brain cells we can save from dying,” she said.

Carr said he was able to recover fairly quickly.

“Sometimes I feel a little tingly feeling in my fingertips. (But) I can use my hands, grab things. It’s not a problem,” Carr said.

When he’s not on the dance floor, Carr is running his roofing and siding business.

“I used to go up on the roof. I don’t do that anymore. I let my guys do that. I do it from the ground,” he said.

He had always tried to stay in shape. He swam and lifted weights. He said he had no issues leading up to the stroke.

“I was OK until I wasn’t,” he said.

These days he’s added dancing to his repertoire. He said he’s really glad he’s taken up dancing.

“I just started. (We’ll) see how it works out. I’m excited about learning,” Carr said.

According to the American Stroke Association, using the acronym "FAST" can help spot a stroke. Here's what it means:

• F = Face Drooping – Does one side of the face droop or is it numb? Ask the person to smile

• A = Arm Weakness – Is one arm weak or numb? Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?

• S = Speech Difficulty – Is speech slurred?

• T = Time to call 911 – Stroke is an emergency. Every minute counts. Call 911 immediately. Note the time when any of the symptoms first appear.

Other symptoms include numbness, confusion, trouble seeing, trouble walking and severe headache.