Googlebox star reveals near-death experience after suffering brain damage as a teenager
Gogglebox star Shaun Malone has opened up about the terrifying moment that he nearly died as a teenager in a candid new interview.
Speaking to Coaching from the Sofa podcast, the star revealed that he had sinusitis which developed into a brain infection, and his parents were told that he had a less than ten per cent chance of surviving.
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Shaun explained: "In 2010 I got sinusitis and in some way, the infection found its way back to my brain. My brain started swelling and my skull started crushing it so my mum took me to A&E saying, 'Look he’s poorly! and they said it was sinusitis.' And then I collapsed one day at home and I ended up going into a coma and they said to my mum and dad that I had a less than ten per cent chance of living."
Shaun stars on the show with his family
He revealed that his parents, Tom and Julie, were told that he'd have brain damage, and that he couldn't move certain parts of his body while recovering. "I was in a coma for a few weeks – and they said to my mum and dad, 'Shaun’s got brain damage, we don’t know what the brain damage is or how it’ll affect him or if it’s going to be really bad.'
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"And when I woke up my brain damage affected me in some ways, like my memory but mostly the way it affected me was with my left side. I essentially had a stroke, I couldn’t move my left arm, my left leg, even the left side of my face."
Shaun's road to recovery was documented on Children's Hospital
Shaun's journey to recovery was documented on the ITV show Children's Hospital, and the family have discussed that time in their lives while on Gogglebox. In one episode, while watching a news story about brain surgery, Tom explained: "The worst thing was he had the shunt thing put in the side of his head and all his skull was missing, he had a woolly hat on, and I brought him to McDonald's down the road.
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"He got an ice cream and he was sucking on it, and there was this girl going round cleaning the tables in McDonald's, and he took his hat off and went, 'Ahhhh... brain freeze!' He turned around and all his head was gone. She nearly fainted. [Expletive] hell, she nearly went under. Do you remember that?" Shaun laughed, replying: "Oh yeah, that was cruel."
