Coronation Street star Chris Fountain seen in hospital bed months after suffering stroke at 35
13.05.2023 - 13:27
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain has shared an image and videos of himself in a hospital bed months after suffering a stroke. The actor, who played Tommy Duckworth in the ITV soap, suffered a mini-stroke in August last year and spent five days in a London hospital after waking up at home unable to speak properly.
Opening up about his terrifying health scare in October 2022, Chris recalled how he was left "speaking like a toddler" before doctors discovered he had suffered a Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) – also known as a mini-stroke – after a blood clot lodged in his brain.
After several days of tests at a specialist stroke unit at the Royal London Hospital, medics determined the actor had a hole in his heart which had caused the blood clot to travel to his brain, triggering the stroke. Chris, 35, has since dedicated himself to raising awareness of the condition
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Taking to Instagram on Friday (May 12), Chris, who also starred in Hollyoaks as Justin Burton, shared how he was in hospital for a planned operation. "So the day's arrived. Just walking to hospital. Got the mother here for moral support. Here we go," he aid to the camera as he walked to the hospital.
After undergoing a pre-op last month, Chris explained the operation he was due to have and said: "What they do is, go in through my groin, go up to my heart and put this thing through where the hole is and it leaves a metal umbrella and they pull it through, it leaves another little metal umbrella at the other side.
"Then my heart grows around it and hopefully, that should mean no more strokes and I'll have a little bionic heart. It's a little bit nerve-wracking as it's a heart