Todd Crawford has an air of determination in his voice, pragmatism even. To hear him talk about what he was doing on Capitol Hill last week, you might not know the extent of his pain.
But eight weeks ago he faced the biggest blow of his life – his wife, Lisa Colagrossi, a TV journalist for WABC-TV in New York City – died from an aneurysm just before 9 a.m. on a Wednesday.
That was her shift. She’d wake at 1:30 a.m., start work by 3 a.m. She’d arrive home at 2 p.m. in time to spend time with the couple’s two sons. She was in bed by 7 p.m.
Last week, Crawford visited Capitol Hill with The Brain Aneurysm Foundation to lobby lawmakers on what he said can be a preventable health condition. Before her death, his wife had been complaining of headaches. He wishes he had pushed harder for her to seek medical help.
“The goal is to try to get an increase in funding, additional research and increased research around the country,” he told The Mirror in a phone interview. “This is something at the bottom of the radar. It’s at the bottom of the radar when you compare it to heart disease and cancer. This is a silent killer — it’s something that kills you instantly.”
He said the condition can be tested by a CT scan or an MRI.
Rattling off statistics, he explained, “There are six million Americans in the country that have brain aneurysms.”
