Stroke turns out to be bullet in head

LONDON - A grandfather who collapsed in his garden after suffering a suspected stroke had actually been shot through the eye.

Peter Hesford, a builder aged 61, was in a serious but stable condition in hospital after a bullet became lodged in his brain.

It was thought that the father of six, from Manchester, had a stroke when he collapsed while gardening on April 19. X-rays revealed he had been shot.

Hesford has no memory of what happened and does not know who shot him or why. His partner Marie Fuller, 50, said the family was waiting to wake up from a "nightmare".

"We thought he had had a stroke and hit his glasses on something as he fell," she said. "The paramedics thought he had had a stroke too."

Hesford has lost his sight in his left eye and is partly paralysed down his right side.

- INDEPENDENT