The Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke nearly died after suffering a major stroke at 24. Clarke was unable to remember her own name after a brain haemorrhage left her in intensive care. The terrifying health scare happened in 2013, shortly after she had finished filming the first season of the hit show.
Clarke has revealed that she had a headache at the gym and then collapsed, after being violently ill before being rushed to hospital. She underwent brain surgery and spent several days in intensive care, but she eventually regained her power of speech. In a piece written for the New Yorker, Clarke explained, “The diagnosis was quick and ominous: A subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture. As I later learned, about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon thereafter...” She was left with severe after effects which included problems with memory and speech. She added, “One night... a nurse woke me and, as part of a series of cognitive exercises, she said, ‘What’s your name?’ “My full name is Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke. But now I couldn’t remember it. Instead, nonsense words tumbled out of my mouth and I went into a blind panic. I’d never experienced fear like that.”
