Brain injury man 'awoke from coma with foreign accent'RSS Feed

A British man suffered a serious traumatic brain injury and awoke from a coma to find himself speaking with a foreign accent.

Tom Paterson, 39, from Largs in Ayrshire, was involved in a car crash and went into a coma for six weeks - but his usual Scottish tongue had been mysteriously replaced by a hard-to-place European accent.

"All my life I've been Tom from Largs, now people think I'm Tomasz from Poland," he remarked.

After learning to walk and talk again as he recovered from the accident, a speech therapist told Tom that he may have a rare condition known as foreign accent syndrome.

Tom, who was a successful hairdresser when he suffered the accident ten years ago, is now set to move to France with his girlfriend - where he jokes he will fit right in with his new accent.

Last year, it was reported that Chris Gregory, a Yorkshireman, came around from brain surgery and found himself speaking in a strong Irish accent, having never even visited the country.

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