Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain suffers mini stroke at 35

Former Coronation Street actor Chris Fountain has said he was left “speaking like a toddler” after suffering a mini stroke.

The 35-year-old, who played Weatherfield’s Tommy Duckworth in the long-running soap, told the Daily Mirror he spent five days in a London hospital after waking up at home unable to speak properly in August.

The actor told the newspaper doctors had discovered he had suffered a Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA) – known as a mini stroke – after a blood clot lodged in his brain.

Fountain said: “I woke up one morning and knew something wasn’t right.

“My mum called me and I just couldn’t get my words out. I started walking round my house looking at things and I could think what the word was, like television or fridge, but I couldn’t say it.

“I called 111 on my mum’s advice and they sent an ambulance for me, it was so scary.

“I felt stupid because I knew exactly what I wanted to say to the doctors, but I couldn’t get the words out, I was speaking like a toddler, I was really embarrassed.”

The 35-year-old said he had broken down in tears when doctors informed him he had had a TIA.

After several days of undergoing tests at a specialist stroke unit at the Royal London Hospital, medics had determined the actor had a hole in his heart which had caused the blood clot to travel to his brain, triggering the stroke.