My name is Erin Hackle, and I’m here on behalf of my sister Kristen Shafer Englert, who passed away in November 2013 from a brain aneurysm that ruptured. Kristen was very well loved. She was a great friend, great sister, daughter. She was everything to everyone. Not knowing she had a brain aneurysm, she was almost full term with her first child. That’s when things went from a very joyous situation to a very tragic one. She was starting to develop some symptoms, which she sought care for and was not diagnosed properly. She did have my nephew and had two days with him. She was transferred. They did find the bleed and she did get surgical intervention at that time and she was neurologically there. She was neurologically intact asking for her son and so little baby steps each day, seemed to take two steps forward, three steps back and unfortunately, which many are after. My understanding after surgical intervention or after rupture, that risk of re-bleed is still there and suddenly passed away about three weeks after that surgical intervention.

So my family first got involved with the Brain Aneurysm Foundation shortly after Kristen passed away. So Kristen passed away in November of 2013 and we were distraught. Just wanted to take that energy and put it somewhere we feel like we could help because we did not want anybody else to have that tragedy strike them because it was the most joyous occasion turned into the most tragic, really. So we started to do a 5k race back home to help bring awareness, help raise funds to benefit the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, which ultimately then helps those in research. Brain aneurysms affect many, you can have that certain age range. We have a lot of work to do to just really push that information out to our leaders.