THUNDER AND FRIGHTENING

Sudden painful headache was early sign of potentially deadly brain bleed for fit and healthy dad Graham

- SARAH VESTY

A DAD has issued a warning after his “thunderclap headache” turned out to be a symptom of a potentially deadly brain aneurysm. 

Graham Mcmanus told how he felt like he had “been hit with a baseball bat” after suddenly falling ill at his home in Dalgety Bay, Fife, last month.

The healthy 45-year-old first thought he had Covid but saw an out-of-hours GP five days later.

He was immediately admitted to hospital and later sent for scans, a lumbar puncture and an angiogram which revealed he had an aneurysm on a vessel in his brain. Tree surgeon Graham said: “If I hadn’t gone to hospital when I did, I could have been found dead on my bedroom floor if the aneurysm had ruptured. I had never heard of a thunderclap headache before.