Football fan left unable to speak after stroke shouts ‘Hearts are s***’ after four months of silence

A football fan who had a stroke has told how he shocked nurses by uttering his first words in four months – and used them to mock his rival team.

Darren Thomson, 22, lost all feeling in the left side of his body just 15 minutes after he developed a blinding headache.

The Hibs fan was rushed to hospital where scans revealed he had suffered a stroke and had a bleed on the brain caused by a blood clot the size of a 10p coin.

He had two operations to help drain the excess fluid in his brain, but he still couldn’t speak for three months due to a tube down his throat then brain damage.

Darren heard his nurses talking about how they supported rival team Hearts – and shocked them by blurting out his first words: ‘Hearts are shit’.

And five months since his first words the young man’s speech is getting better every day.

He’s still in a wheelchair but hoping to be on his feet to be his dad’s best man at his wedding later this year.

Darren said: ”It’s so hard to put into words what it’s like not being able to speak. I was so confused, I didn’t even know what was happening or anything.

‘But when I had a Hearts doctor looking after me, someone had said “what’s Hearts” and I just said “Hearts are shit”.

‘It just came to me, I was so happy that I spoke out, everyone laughed.

‘It felt so good to just hear my own voice again.’

Darren was at home on June 5 last year watching YouTube videos with his friend when he started to feel a headache at the back and right side of his head.

The Hibs fan thought nothing of it until minutes later when he couldn’t feel the left side of his body.

His friend, Michael Alison, 21, lifted up Darren’s left arm but when he let it go it fell to his side.

He called Darren’s dad Phil, 55, who rushed to the scene and took Darren to Borders General Hospital where medics discovered he had suffered a stroke and had severe bleeding in his brain.

He was transferred to the Edinburgh Western General were medics drained the cerebrospinal fluid – a clear and colourless body fluid found in the brain and spinal cord.

Phil, from Galashiels, Scottish Borders, said medics did not think ‘he would make it’.

He was there for five weeks before he returned home in early December last year.

Darren uses a wheelchair and requires a carer 24/7, but said he remains positive due to his dad’s support.

Darren said: ‘My dad’s been unreal. I just think if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t be here today.

‘I thank him so much for everything he has done’.