Coronation Street star opens up on suffering stroke at 35 years old

Chris Fountain says he ‘felt really stupid’ after mini-stroke

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On Tuesday’s episode of This Morning, hosts Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby welcomed soap star Chris Fountain onto the show. During their chat, the 35-year-old, who is best known for playing Tommy Duckworth in Coronation Street, opened up about having a stroke earlier this year. He confessed that he was left feeling stupid as he was unable to formulate his sentences.

Introducing Chris onto the show, the actor stated that the incident occurred at the start of August after speaking to his mother on the phone.

The 35-year-old shared that he was aware of what he was trying to say but the words weren’t properly coming out.

Telling his mum he’d call her back, he wandered around his house where he said although he couldn’t put his finger on what was happening, he knew something wasn’t right.

Looking at objects in the house, Chris added that although his inside voice was saying it perfectly fine, he couldn’t physically get the words out.

After calling 111, paramedics arrived who at first wasn’t that concerned but took him to the hospital to be checked.

Speaking about speaking to them on the phone before they arrived, Chris said: “I couldn’t give them my address, I was really struggling to give them my address.

“At this point, physically I felt fine and then eventually when I got to the hospital I sat with a nurse and she was asking me to give her my symptoms and it just became very very difficult to speak.

“I was embarrassed, in panic and scared, I just felt really stupid because I couldn’t articulate myself.”

With the hospital deciding to keep him in, they gave Chris a CT scan which came back clear making him believe he was fine.

Although the doctors didn’t want to send him home and opted to give him an MRI scan the next day.

From that, Chris was informed he had suffered a mini-stroke, also known as a transient ischaemic attack. The soap star admitted he questioned why it happened and wondered if it would happen to him again.

He said: “I keep myself quite fit, last year I went on a bit of a health kick and lost a load of weight and I’m training all the time.”

Wanting to understand why it happened, Chris told Holly that at the time nobody could give him a definite answer as they carried out more tests due to his age.

The former Corrie star added: “I’ve found out since going back into the hospital that I’ve got a hole in my heart, apparently this is quite common.

“A lot of people go through life and never realise but the problem I had was the clot got through the hole and then went to the left-hand side of my brain which was my speech and memory.

“It’s why I couldn’t speak properly but like I say, as traumatising as it’s been, and it’s been a weird few months trying to accept and move forward and process things, it could have been so much worse for me.”

Now regaining 90% of his speech back, Chris confessed that the first few days out of the hospital he became irritable as he was stumbling over his words still.

“I knew what I was trying to say but I couldn’t quite get my words and I would stop through sentences and it was quite tough.”

Doctor Ellie appeared on the show to tell the This Morning hosts that having a stroke at an age similar to Chris’s is very uncommon.

She added it would only really happen if somebody has a health problem but the classic sign of a stroke is speech problems.

The doctor shared that other signs to be aware of is the drooping of the face or feeling a sudden sense of weakness in an arm.

If people spot those signs she then urges them to call 111 or 999 as Chris had done in his situation.

This Morning continues weekdays on ITV from 10am

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