The horror of 9/11/2001, when the World Trade Centre in New York collapsed, is one.

The day terrorists hit London's transport network on 7/7/2005 is another.

Other dates have importance only for individuals – the dates they got engaged, married, their children were born or other milestone events.

For Lee Cassidy of 6 Johnstone Place, Brora, the date seared onto his brain is 26/6/2007, when he endured a medical trauma which was to change his life.

It was the day that time suddenly stood still for the offshore worker, as he literally hovered between life and death after suffering a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage or stroke.

And it's also the date from which the former smoker and social drinker was forced to adopt a new and healthier lifestyle – one he now desperately wants other people to take up.

For Lee is now on a mission and is determined that other people will learn from his experience.

The message he is now preaching is, above all, to stop smoking, to live a healthy lifestyle, and not to ignore any signs of impending illness.

Research has shown that smoking is a major cause of strokes with 11 per cent of the deaths caused by a stroke due to smoking.

Lee admits: "I did smoke heavily. I used to eat cigarettes. I would buy 20 cigarettes in the morning and I'd have to buy another 20 to see me through the night. That was when I was at home. Obviously when I was offshore I didn't smoke so much."

He recalled: "When I was in hospital, my neurosurgeon held my hand and said: 'You have done more by stopping smoking than we could ever do to you.' For me, stopping smoking has given me a second chance of life."

Lee, who had always enjoyed good health, remembers little of the dramatic events which landed him in a hospital bed.

June 25th, the day before he suffered the stroke, was like any other day – apart from the fact it was also his 41st birthday.

He says: "It was just a normal day. I spent the morning at Brora Golf Club enjoying the company of two of my friends.

"Later in the day I pottering about in the garden, building my shed. I was due to go offshore two days later.

"That night my six-year-old son wouldn't go to sleep, so I went upstairs and tried to get him to settle by doing a peep show at the end of his bed.

"All I really remember is that peep show and then waking up in the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow."

Man on a mission – Lee Cassidy of Brora.

Lee learned afterwards that he had collapsed in the bathroom of his home after getting up at around 6am the following morning to go to the toilet.

His wife, Arlene, had heard the thump as he went down and immediately rang NHS 24. Lee was taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness and then flown to the Southern General.

Doctors told his worried family that he was bleeding from a ruptured aneurysm into the sub-arachnoid space lining the brain. An added complication was that there was also another aneurysm on the opposite side.

At least one in 100 people go about their daily routine unaware they have potentially deadly flaws in the blood vessels of their brain.

These defects, known as berry aneurysms, are like tiny balloons where the walls of the artery have thinned and weakened. The aneurysms burst if put under stress and the end result is a brain haemorrhage or stroke. Sub-arachnoid haemorrhages are often fatal – as many as 30 per cent of people who have them die within hours, and a further 30 per cent die within the first month.

Lee's life was saved by a relatively new technique, first performed ten years ago and known as coiling, where a detachable platinum coil device is inserted into the blood vessels via a small cut in the skin – usually in the groin – and passed up into the brain under X-ray guidance to block the faulty vessel.

But the way back to health was not easy for Lee, who succumbed to a brain infection after the operation and slipped in and out of consciousness for five weeks.

But eventually he made a good enough recovery to be sent for recuperation at the Lawson Memorial Hospital in Golspie.

In December he went back to the Southern General to undergo an angiogram, which showed that the operation had been a success and that the second aneurysm was stable.

Lee said: "I'm happy to say that I will not need another angiogram for a year and a half, which is great news. It shows how confident the neurosurgeons are about my recovery."

Now, with just over four months to go until the first anniversary of his near-death experience, Lee is anxious to tell his story – and particularly to broadcast the fact that, two years after stopping smoking, the risk of having a stroke decreases significantly. After five years the risk is about the same for a former smoker as for a non-smoker.

He said: "I feel lucky to have survived, and I feel I owe it to people to tell them what I've been through.

"I'm no doctor, nor do I have any medical qualifications, but what I think I do have is common sense. I would urge people to stub out those cigarettes and take responsibility for their own health."

carolinem@northern-times.co.uk

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