Mum praises son’s ‘amazing’ recovery after doctors said he would never walk or talk again from symptomless stroke at 28

A dancer who doctors warned would never walk or talk again after a sudden symptomless stroke at 28 said he will “keep fighting” to fully regain his speech and hopes to be dancing again within six months.

Daniel Parsonage, 29, a former supermarket team leader from North Wales, was preparing for a group dance at the Hawarden Summer Carnival on July 12 2025 when he said he felt “funny” and suddenly passed out.

Daniel, better known as Dan, was rushed to the Countess of Chester Hospital, where doctors believed the bleeding on his brain from high blood pressure to be so severe that there was nothing more they could do.

Dan’s mother, Claire, 49, said she and Dan’s family – including father Wayne, 48, brother Jay, 25, and sister Macey, 22 – were encouraged to say their goodbyes, before a final review of Dan’s brain scans saw him blue-lighted to The Walton Centre in Liverpool.

This is where Dan had two emergency surgeries, including one on July 14 to stop the bleeding and another two days later where a large part of his skull was removed to allow his brain to swell more safely.

It was after these surgeries that doctors warned Dan’s family he may never walk and talk again, before he spent four weeks in an induced coma.

Since waking up in mid-August 2025, and with the help of speech and physiotherapy, Dan’s speech has gone from non-existent to speaking in sentences and he can walk short distances with a mobility aid.

He is sharing his story as part of Channel 4’s two-part documentary, Trauma: My Broken Brain, which airs on Monday and coincides with World Stroke Day on October 29.

Dan told PA Real Life: “I hope I feel normal again.”

Claire said: “From us being told Dan was not going to make it, then he wouldn’t be able to walk or talk, to where he is now, it’s just amazing.

“Until this happened to us, we didn’t realise how many people have strokes – and so young too.

“So, we just want people to know that they’re not alone, there is hope and to just keep fighting.”

Specialising in street dance since he was 11, Dan said his health over the years was “completely fine” and his fitness levels were good at the time of his stroke, playing weekly football matches and training for the Chester Marathon.

Just two weeks before the incident, Claire said she was checking her and Wayne’s blood pressures with a home device, and they decided on a “rare occasion” to also test Dan’s levels, which came back “absolutely fine”.

“He had absolutely no symptoms,” Claire said, of the hours before Dan’s stroke.

So, when Wayne received a call from a friend on July 12 last year to tell him Dan had collapsed, he suspected it might just be from fainting.

When the parents both arrived on the scene separately, Claire said she saw her son on the floor with “sheets around him”, he was limp on one side of his body and he had been sick.

After an ambulance arrived up to an hour after the 999 call, Claire got in the back with Dan and they were rushed to the Countess of Chester Hospital.

Claire described what happened once they arrived: “I was taken to a family room on my own and (Dan) was taken through to A&E.

“All I remember is them saying, ‘You need to call the family in. There’s nothing we can do… say your goodbyes’.

“It was horrible.”

Scans and tests diagnosed a bleed on Dan’s brain caused by high blood pressure, before Claire said a consultant neurosurgeon made the call to blue-light him to The Walton Centre where they could “give it a go” to try to save her son’s life.

“If (consultant neurosurgeon) Professor (Andrew) Brodbelt hadn’t stepped in, Dan wouldn’t be here today,” Claire said.

Two emergency surgeries on July 14 and 16 saved Dan’s life, leaving him in an induced coma.

Within this time, doctors told the family there was a large section of Dan’s brain that would not work again, so they should expect him to never walk or talk again.

Claire said: “As long as he woke up, we didn’t care. That’s all we wanted.”

The mother of three said the four weeks waiting to see if Dan woke up were “tough”, but she was “happy” when she saw his eyes flicker and then open for 10 minutes.

Dan said: “I remember waking up and thinking, ‘Where am I?’ and that I couldn’t speak words.”

This lack of speech continued for nine weeks in total until Dan’s best friend visited him in hospital one day and Claire was shocked when Dan said, “Hi Ben!”

Dan has had speech therapy to improve his diction, as well as physiotherapy for eight months at Clatterbridge rehabilitation centre on the Wirral, where he has gone from not being able to lift himself up in bed to using a wheelchair and walking with a mobility aid.

“I get up and I shower, I put my clothes on, I do my (face) cream and I do my hair,” Dan said, of his morning routine, before he takes medication for blood pressure, heart health and to stop seizures.

Dan said his confidence grew when he no longer had to wear a helmet, after he had surgery in February this year to replace the missing section of his skull with an artificial plate.

It is this part of his journey that he shared with the production company Stream Media Group from December last year for a two-part documentary entitled Trauma: My Broken Brain, commissioned by Channel 4 in partnership with the Stroke Association charity.

It coincides with World Stroke Day on October 29 and shows the long road young people can take after surviving a stroke.

Dan’s goal is to be able to dance again before his 30th birthday in March 2027.

“I hope I see a bigger and better version of myself than ever before,” he said.

Claire said: “We want to spread awareness that (strokes can) happen to younger people and even when you’re told there’s no hope that there actually is.

“Daniel’s showing that because he just keeps fighting all the way through.

“He keeps pushing himself and I’m very proud of him.”

Trauma: My Broken Brain airs at 10pm on October 26 on Channel 4.