Boy survives rare brain haemorrhage
Updated on 10 August 2009
A teenager has been declared a medical "celebrity" after surviving a rare brain haemorrhage which left him with "worse odds than Russian Roulette".
Jack Pearson was given a 10% chance of survival when he was struck by a potentially fatal subarachnoid brain haemorrhage.
The condition, a form of stroke, occurs when blood seeps into the subarachnoid space - a cavity between the arachnoid membrane and membranes around the brain.
More than half of the victims of the condition die as a result of blood damaging the tissue of the brain.
But after emergency surgery and a series of pioneering operations, the 14-year-old - one of the youngest-ever victims of the condition - has been given a clean bill of health by doctors.
The schoolboy, from Lerwick in Shetland said he felt like he "had been kicked in the head" when he collapsed after suffering a severe headache on his way home from school in December last year.
"At the beginning they gave me worse odds than Russian Roulette", he said.
"I'm just glad it's over now and I'm looking forward to getting back to normal."
He was rushed to the island's local Gilbert Bain hospital, and later transferred to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
His condition was so rare, he was sent on to the regional centre for clinical neuroscience at the Western General Hospital, in Edinburgh.
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