WANTAGH, NY -- With overcast skies and occasional glimpses of sun, more than 300 spirited individuals recently turned out at Jones Beach to support Long Island’s first Brain Aneurysm Awareness Walk, organized by the Harvey Cushing Institutes of Neuroscience Brain Aneurysm Center at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) in Manhasset and the national Brain Aneurysm Foundation.

Supporters included doctors, nurses and staff members of the Brain Aneurysm Center and the North Shore-LIJ Health System; KJOY, of the Long Island Radio Group, as well as brain aneurysm survivors, their families and friends.  Participants at the event also paid tribute to Jessica Lynn Nolan, a senior at CW Post Long Island University, who died earlier this year from a ruptured brain aneurysm.  Many of Ms. Nolan’s family members, friends and sorority sisters from Delta Phi Epsilon remembered Jessica by wearing her sorority’s emblem and tee-shirts printed with “We love JNO.”

Neurosurgeon David Chalif, MD, co-director of the Brain Aneurysm Center, also recognized Ms. Nolan, saying, that, “despite heroic efforts to save her life, she fought a war and didn’t win.”  Dr. Chalif said the more than $45,000 raised from the event will help to increase awareness and research to prevent the tragedy of brain aneurysms. 

Dr. Chalif and Avi Setton, MD, co-director of the Brain Aneurysm Center, honored all the brain aneurysm survivors at the walk, most of whom were patients they had treated at NSUH, as well as family and loved ones who supported them throughout their recovery.

One brain aneurysm survivor, Erin Lakios, 44, of Mount Sinai, a mother of four, spoke on behalf of all survivors, thanking the doctors and nurses at the Brain Aneurysm Center.  “The amount of support I received from the hospital, my family and my community was amazing.  I’m grateful for a second chance at life,” she said.

According to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, one in 50 Americans is at risk for harboring a brain aneurysm.  Each year, approximately 30,000 to 50,000 individuals suffer a ruptured brain aneurysm.  One-third die before they reach the hospital emergency room; another third are admitted in a neurologically compromised condition; among those who recover, many are disabled by stroke.

NSUH’s Brain Aneurysm Center, which is supported by a 16-bed neuro critical care unit, offers state-of-the-art diagnosis and multimodality treatments for incidental or ruptured brain aneurysms.  The ICU serves patients throughout Long Island, Queens and other areas.

People who suffer a ruptured brain aneurysm will often have warning signs, including what they describe as “the worst headache of their lives.”  Other symptoms to watch out for include:  nausea and vomiting; stiff neck or neck pain; blurred or double vision; pain above and behind the eye; dilated pupils; sensitivity to light; and loss of sensation.

Doctors at the Brain Aneurysm Center perform two types of procedures to treat brain aneurysm:   endovascular coiling and microsurgical clipping.  Both procedures seek to block the flow of blood to the aneurysm site.  Coiling, the less invasive method, involves using neuroimaging tools to insert a microcatheter into an artery in the groin through which platinum coils are fed into the sac of the aneurysm, packing the bulge and obstructing blood flow.  Clipping requires making a small opening in the skull through which microsurgical tools locate the aneurysm and affix a titanium clip to cut it off and restore blood flow through normal vessels.

For more information about the Brain Aneurysm Center, please call 516-562-3822.

Media Contact: Betty Olt
               516-465-2645
               bolt@nshs.edu