Layne French said, pointing to the back of his head: "After about 20 seconds, it felt like I was kicked here, and this happened on March 13 during rush hour traffic right after entering the George Massey Tunnel.

French explained that he was driving at about 80 kilometers per hour when he lost control.

He said: "Then everything starts to go downhill, I couldn't stop, I couldn't see, and the world was spinning."

French confirmed that he lost the ability to use the right side of his body, but he used his left arm and leg to cross the tunnel towards the Steveston exit, and that's when he said he pulled to the side, got out of his car, and waved his left arm to ask for help.

He said someone called 911, and after about 15 minutes, French also called 911, he waited a long time, and after about an hour he received a phone call.

French recalls: One of the suggestions I received was: "Take yourself to the hospital."

He added: "It was one in the morning before I saw a doctor."

French, a father of two, shared his experience on Friday from the Delta South party with MLA Ian Paton of the opposition BC United.

Paton said: "This shows that the healthcare system is broken, and we will raise this as a question during the question period to the Minister of Health: Tell us, what is happening to our healthcare system?

The British Columbia Emergency Health Services (BCES) explained that the call was initially coded yellow, meaning it was non-urgent.

A statement from Bowen Osoko, a spokesperson for BCEHS, said: Our records indicate that the emergency medical call operators confirmed with the patient that he was able to drive safely to a nearby parking lot before calling 911, and secondary triage reassessed the call with the patient over the phone, and the call was re-evaluated as coded green, indicating that the problem could be resolved with treatment on site.

Osoko says French's parents arrived before BCEHS could provide an ambulance, adding that paramedics were responding to a large volume of calls and dealing with life-threatening incidents.

Meanwhile, French strongly disagrees with BCEHS's assessment of the situation.

He said, "This whole system that says: we help you when you are in dire need, but they didn't, no one came, and they left me lying on the roadside."

French was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis and is now receiving treatment at the Stroke Prevention Clinic at Vancouver General Hospital.