Valentine's Day is associated with the heart, but for Eric Dabney, the day also will be inextricably linked to the brain.
A limousine driver, the 54-year-old Galloway Township man was bringing 19 people from an Atlantic City casino to Philadelphia International Airport last Valentine's Day when something went horribly wrong.
He doesn't quite remember what was happening, but does recall the passengers urging him to pull over after he struck a highway divider twice.
Dabney was having a stroke.
Not too long ago, the large clot that lodged in an artery in Dabney's brain perhaps could have meant a permanent disability, loss of work, even death.
Instead, Dabney was rushed to Capital Health System's hospital in Trenton, where doctors plucked the clot from his brain. He was up and out of the hospital within three days.
"I consider myself very fortunate," he said.
Dabney is a case study of a relatively new intra-arterial device and technique that, for the first time since the mid-1990s, has neurosurgeons excited about making real inroads in restoring patients' full functions after a stroke.
And now they have evidence to support their hope. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published the results of a study of 500 stroke patients in The Netherlands that found the intra-arterial treatment was effective and safe.
Dr. Erol Veznedaroglu, chairman of the neurosurgery department at Capital Health, said the positive results following surgery represent a great leap forward in the treatment of stroke.
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The results are in: Stroke treatment tried and tested in New Jersey restores lives