His family listened, devastated, as the neurosurgeon explained that one last heroic effort — removing the full frontal flap of Luke Valentine’s skull — might save his life, but only a fraction of the person they knew would remain.
It wasn’t removing his forehead that had Luke’s mother stunned. It was her refusal to process the finality of the verdict. Her 28-year-old son had survived this before.

The first time
Eight years earlier, Paula Valentine picked up the phone and heard her youngest son’s desperate plea. It came in just two words: “Help me.”
While alone with his baby daughter, Korie, on that July evening in 2000, Luke was struck by excruciating head pain. Blood found in his spinal fluid suggested that his brain was suffering an aneurysm.
Luke was taken by land (bad weather prevented the LifeFlight helicopter from flying) to Duluth where neurosurgeon Mark Glazier referred him to Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis for a new procedure.
Luke was among some of the first to undergo a surgical technique called “endovascular coiling” which doesn’t require opening the skull to treat “a bubble” in the artery of the brain. A surgeon maneuvered a catheter with a thin platinum coil, about twice the thickness of a human hair, into Luke’s groin and through his vascular system. The wire coil filled the aneurysm, sealing off the blood supply and allowing it to heal.
Paula remembers the surgeon saying that Luke’s young veins were “like a freeway.” In less than two weeks, he walked out of the hospital with residual but slight short-term memory loss and some shakiness.
Family members still worried when Luke had any type of headache. He’d suffered from migraines as well as “head spins” since he was a little boy. He was three years old when he had his first CT scan.
But Luke remembers being told three years after the crisis: “You’ll never have another one.”

The second time
Luke has no memory of Feb. 16, 2008 when he put in a full work day at Menards in the Falls.
He told his wife Sarah when he arrived home that he felt like he’d been punched in the back of his head. She remembers him standing near the couch, and then falling to the floor.
“Call 911,” cried Luke’s now-8-year-old daughter Korie. Luke was convulsing as Sarah dialed 911 and threw another phone to Korie with instructions to “Call grandma.”
He regained consciousness complaining about his head and held Sarah’s hands while they waited for the ambulance.
Luke continued to have seizures in the emergency room at Falls Memorial Hospital where a CT scan revealed a lot of blood inside his head. Neurosurgeon Rekiyatu Lawal told Luke’s mother, father Mike, Sarah and other family members that his brain likely contained another, more serious, aneurysm.
Paula doesn’t remember the words she used when she asked if her son would live. But she remembers the answer: “It’s bad. It’s really bad.”
And once again, bad luck brought bad weather. Lawal, who is based in Rochester, called all over the state for a LifeFlight helicopter, said Paula. When none could fly, Lawal personally accompanied Luke in an ambulance which headed south with family members following frantically.
A Gold Cross Ambulance met the Falls ambulance in Virginia “in the Walgreen parking lot,” Sarah said incredulously. In that parking lot, they put a breathing tube in Luke and administered a paralytic drug for his seizures.
Now ahead of the ambulance, Luke’s family traveled in terror that the flashing light behind them would go out and turn back toward the Falls. But it didn’t.

The news
They were allowed to see him briefly at St. Mary’s Medical Center where it was confirmed that Luke had suffered another aneurysm close to the site of the first one, behind his left eye, and the insult to his brain was severe. A tube was inserted into his brain to relieve fluid pressure and he was given heavy medications to induce coma.
The next morning, Duluth Clinic neurosurgeon Eugene Kang, a miracle man of his own right, performed Luke’s second endovascular procedure, this time requiring four coils. Duluth’s new world-class surgical suite for endovascular coiling which houses St. Mary’s $2.2 million Philips Allura Xper machine, was established for Kang’s state-of-the-art procedures.
But the assault to Luke’s brain had caused swelling which was not relieved by the coiling. “Normal skull pressure is rated at 10,” said Paula. “Luke’s was 47.”
A last heroic effort to save Luke’s life was explained to the family. A decompressive craniectomy, a large opening cut out of the skull to allow the brain to expand in a semi-controlled fashion, was needed to reduce the pressure inside his head. Craniectomies have been found to statistically improve brain injury outcomes significantly.
But the news came with little hope: “Kang said if Luke survived, there was less than a 20 percent chance that he’d be who he was before,” said his mother.
While tormented family members waited outside, Luke’s bifrontal skull flap was sawed from ear to ear and removed. A screen was also implanted in his abdomen to filter dangerous blood clots which might enter his heart or lungs.
Glazier appeared with the news that a successful craniectomy brought Luke’s chances back to 50/50. Only an agonizing wait would tell them more.
Still critical, Luke was kept in a closely monitored coma for 18 days. An intensive care nurse was with him at all times. A weaning of the induced coma was attempted.
“We were told that he might wake up in weeks, in months, in years, or never,” said Sarah.

Miracles happen
It appeared that Luke was waking on Feb. 27. A softening of the brain tissue just beneath the skin of his forehead indicated the pressure inside his head was lessening. He started to move. He couldn’t talk due to his tracheotomy, but Sarah remembers Luke mouthing the word “black.” And what family then believed was a wink, they now know was a twitch. Luke was trying to tell them that he was blind in his left eye.
While that was scary, it was also overwhelmingly and gloriously apparent that the Luke they knew was still inside.
On March 5, Luke was transferred from a step-down unit into a 10-week rehabilitation plan at Miller Dwan Center. When he arrived by wheelchair, he had a feeding tube and couldn’t talk or walk. He was fitted with a vibrating trach adaptor which gave finally gave him a voice. His first audible word was “hi.”
A speech therapist helped him regain his speech. He was taught to walk again and inched a few more steps each day. Readily, it was decided that rehab time could be cut in half. It was then that Kang first called him his “miracle man.”
Luke revisited the ICU nurses who had cared for him. They wept at the sight of this young survivor who was functioning miraculously, in such a short time. Later, medical staff from St. Mary’s would visit for a glimpse of this amazing young man.
Luke’s rehab time was cut in half again. On March 22, he returned home to Korie, Sarah and her son Taylor Tilander, 7, and dog KT. After a total of five weeks in Duluth, all with Sarah at his side, he began rehabilitation here in the Falls.

Moving forward
Luke is never left alone and must take extreme precautions not to injure his unshielded brain, sometimes by wearing a helmet.
The blindness in his eye is caused by an infiltration of blood but sight may be recovered in the future. His skull flap is currently stored in a tissue bank. “It’s in a freezer in Duluth,” said Luke. If the health of the bone is retained, it will be implanted back into his skull, or a prosthetic forehead will be used. “My brain is right behind this skin,” said Luke, prodding his forehead with his finger.
He was told that smoking and high blood pressure could contribute to the development of an aneurysm which is predominantly a genetic weakness.
Luke may have inherited his remarkable resilience as well.
Paula Valentine, granddaughter of one of the area’s early physicians, Dr. W.F. Cantwell, was 7 years old when her father, Robert Gunther, died. She was orphaned at age 9 when her mother, Virginia “Gingie” died, along with siblings Peggy, Pam and Bob. The Gunther children were raised by the late Mable and Bill Borden. The firstborn son of Mike and Paula, Joshua, died of sudden infant death syndrome. And more recently, Paula gave one of her kidneys to twin sister Pamela Carlson of Superior, when an auto-immune disease ravaged her organs.
Still, she believed in the strength and tenacity of her son.
The love of his older brother was warmly portrayed by a gesture taken from Luke’s fondness for country singer Hank Williams Jr. Jesse Valentine had custom T shirts printed which feature the lyric “Country Boys Will Survive.” Luke’s shirt is slightly different, boasting “This country boy has survived.”
He takes nine medications daily and tires easily. And he’s frustrated by what he can’t remember. “But I feel normal,” Luke said. Paula thinks her son is more laid back than before.
His journey forward will include more CT scans and continued rehabilitation. Physical strengthening and the reprogramming of his brain will take time.
A benefit is staged for Saturday at the Union Hall from 4 to 7 p.m. Over 50 raffle prizes will be displayed.
The road behind has been staggering, and the cost has gone deep into the millions. Brother Jesse and Stacy Harris have worked hard planning Saturday’s benefit, with hopes that the community will offer its faithful generosity and be an important part of this miracle.

If you go:
WHAT: Spaghetti Dinner Benefit for Luke Valentine
WHEN: Saturday, April 19, 4 to 7 p.m.
WHERE: Union Hall in the Falls
WHY: To help Luke with the enormous expenses surrounding his second brain aneurysm.
Raffles • Matching Thrivent Funds