PORTLAND – When LeRay Bassett of Portland suffered a brain aneurysm 35 years ago, so little was known about the cause of aneurysms that Bassett had to fly to Ontario to be properly diagnosed.

Though Bassett survived and has recovered, ignorance of brain aneurysms persists among the general population. To help combat that lack of recognition and raise funds for brain aneurysm research, the 4th annual KAT-Walk and inaugural Karo Run for Brain Aneurysm Awareness is being held Saturday, Sept. 15, at noon on Back Cove Boulevard in Portland. The walk will last around 3.5 miles and starts at the area across from the Hannaford plaza. The money raised from the event will go to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in Boston, the world’s only nonprofit organization solely dedicated to providing critical awareness, education, support and research funding to reduce the incidence of brain aneurysm ruptures located.

Bassett’s daughter, Kim McInnis of Westbrook, who will serve as race director, said that the main purpose of the run-walk isn’t necessarily to raise money.

“The amount of people that we connected with was just huge,” she said of last year’s event, her first. “I think it’s been a big help for my mom just in the sense that other people do go through what we go through and other people have dealt with death, sadly enough, and also survival.

“And sometimes I think the surviving is not an easy thing for the survivor, because it’s like living with a ticking time bomb, you just never know.”

Dave McCausland started the KAT-Walk three years ago after his niece – and event namesake – Kimberly A. Tudor passed away in December 2008 at the age of 32 from an undetected brain aneurysm rupture, which occurs when a weak bulge on the wall of an artery in the brain and catastrophically ruptures and floods the brain with blood. Just two years before that his wife had survived a rupture, and just three months ago the disorder once again struck his family when a rupture killed his sister-in-law.

This year will also mark the first annual Karo 5K run in memory of Scarborough native Karolina A. Kurka, who passed away at 27 following a ruptured brain aneurysm in July 2011.

In three years the event has raised more than $21,000 for the foundation, but he said that the chief point of the event was to spread awareness of the silent killer.

“I think one of the things that is different about this is there is a significant death rate immediately. It’s obviously pretty traumatic and hits families pretty fast,” McCausland said. “Our biggest thing here in Maine is not necessarily raising funds, it’s raising awareness, and the takeaway is knowing the symptoms and taking them seriously.”

It is estimated that up to one in 50 people in the U.S. will develop a brain aneurysm during their lifetime. Each year about 30,000 people will suffer a ruptured brain aneurysm, meaning that statistically 150-200 Maine residents a year will suffer a rupture.

Almost half of those will die before even reaching the hospital and of those surviving, and only a third will recover without disabilities.

The event has attracted about 250 people each year since its inception, and with the new run portion McCausland said he expects 300-400 attendees this year. The bigger the event gets, the better, McInnis said, both because that will raise more money and help get the all-important word out on the danger of brain aneurysms.

“The point of having the run and the race and getting people out there is that even if we are able to save just one life, and make people aware of the symptoms and the signs of a possible aneurysm or a possible rupture, that would be huge,” McInnis said.

“And the bigger it gets, the more people we’ll be able to reach. The biggest thing is raising the awareness, and the more people we get out the better spread the word will be.”

LeRay Bassett of Portland, center, a brain aneurysm survivor, stands with her children Charles “Sandy” Bassett of Wiscasset and Kim McInnis of Westbrook. McInnis is the race director for the 4th annual KAT-Walk and inaugural Karo Run for Brain Aneurysm Awareness, to be held Saturday, Sept. 15 on Back Cove Boulevard in Portland. (Courtesy photo)