Why Ellie is proof that – with the right treatment – patients like Sir Alex Ferguson CAN recover

Walking down the aisle this summer as a bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding, a bouquet of flowers in her hands, will represent an extraordinary triumph for Ellie Boakes.

For two years ago, the 24-year-old gym receptionist, from Hildenborough in Kent, was told by a neurologist that she’d never walk again.

The devastating news came just a week after Ellie suffered a major stroke, putting paid to her dreams of a career in the police.

There are two main types of stroke. A haemorrhagic stroke is when a weakened blood vessel ruptures.

This is the type suffered by former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson; in his case, reportedly, a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a relatively rare type of stroke where the bleeding occurs on the surface of the brain. It accounts for around one in 20 of the 100,000 strokes in the UK each year.

The other more common type is an ischaemic stroke, which occurs as the result of a blockage, frequently a blood clot, that reduces or stops the flow of blood to the brain.

In Ellie’s case, the stroke occurred when the blood supply was accidentally cut off during brain surgery to treat her epilepsy. When she woke up she couldn’t move her left arm or leg.

‘There was no sensation there at all,’ recalls Ellie. ‘I also couldn’t see out of my left eye and my mouth drooped.’ These two symptoms disappeared within days, but then she was told she’d never walk again.

‘I burst into tears, but almost immediately I thought to myself: “Crying isn’t going to help.” I told myself I’d walk out of that hospital and I did – though it was perhaps more of a stagger.’