Former EastEnders star Des Coleman has spoken about his recovery after being hospitalised for a tumour.
Coleman, who played Lenny Wallace on the BBC soap, spent two days on life-support in hospital after collapsing at a service station in November.
Doctors discovered that Des – who now works as a weather presenter for ITV – had a gastric tumour and he underwent emergency surgery, before recovering for three months.
In an interview with ITV, he explained: "I was in a Costa Coffee shop on the M40 near Oxford when I reached over to buy a coffee, keeled over and began vomiting blood.
"Like most men, I thought I would be okay and was saying things like, 'Stop fussing' and, 'Leave me alone'.
"Twenty hours (after I first collapsed), an emergency ambulance was called," he added. "I had a bleeding of the stomach and needed emergency surgery – it was a scary situation."
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Thanking doctors and nurses, he continued: "Today, all I can do is say a big thank you to him and all of the doctors and nurses who looked after not just me but everyone else in the hospital I was in in Burton.
"None of us pay enough in to the NHS compared with what you get back at a time like this.
"I am lucky to be in a (public) position to be able to say, 'Thank you' to them all. No other company works round the clock like they do."
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