Former Hollyoaks and Coronation Street star Chris Fountain has revealed he is to undergo surgery after suffering a mini stroke which left him “speaking like a toddler”, according to a newspaper report.

The 35-year-old star said he might have died had he not got to hospital as quickly as he did.

Fountain, who played Justin Burton in Hollyoaks from 2004 to 2009, and Tommy Duckworth in Coronation Street from 2011 to 2013, spoke about his ordeal in an interview with the Daily Mirror.

He said he spent five days in hospital in London after waking up at home and being unable to speak properly in August.

Doctors told him he had suffered a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) – known as a mini stroke – after a blood clot lodged in his brain, the actor said.

“I woke up one morning and knew something wasn’t right,” he told the newspaper. “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.

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“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.”

Fountain said he became emotional and cried when doctors informed him what had happened.

“What’s scary is if I hadn’t have called 111 when I did and got to hospital so quickly I don’t know if that clot could have travelled to the wrong place in my brain, I could have died,” he said. “That clot was like a ticking bomb in my head.”

Fountain underwent tests at a specialist stroke unit at the Royal London Hospital, where medics determined he had a hole in his heart which caused the blood clot.

He will now have to have a small operation to mend the hole, according to the report, and it is hoped this will prevent any more clots travelling to his brain.

As well as his acting career, Fountain also appeared on Dancing On Ice in 2008. However, he was axed from Coronation Street after videos emerged of him rapping about violence against women, for which he apologised at the time.

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