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Ormskirk A former engineer left disabled and living on benefits has turned his life around after a stroke rewired his brain and turned him into an artist.
Ken Walters, 51, suffered multiple spine fractures and severe internal injuries when he was crushed against a wall by a fork-lift truck when a driver lost control in 1986. The accident left him wheelchair-bound and jobless, and triggered a 19-year depression as he scraped a living on disability benefits. Two serious heart attacks deepened his gloom.
When things looked like they could not get any worse, he suffered a stroke in 2005. However, the cerebral haemorrhage turned out to be a piece of good fortune because it “rewired” part of his brain and opened up an artistic flair he showed no signs of before. Now, after his early doodles developed into advanced digital images, Mr Walters has created his own software and has been contracted by EA games, the computer company.
He has created digital creatures, such as a flipfloat, above, for a new educational game on evolution. Mr Walters, who has earned £30,000 so far, said at his home in Ormskirk, Lancashire: “Wherever this new love for art has come from it’s certainly changed my life for ever.”
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The mind is a wonderful thing, I caught meningitis in my first year at university in 1987 and after a 2 week coma, the introverted shy student was no more! My shoert term memory suffered and I had double vision for a year BUT the rewiring has produced a far more resourceful me with a wicked humour!
Dr J C Bullas, Southampton, UK
Anyone else read Stephen King's Duma Key? Same story except fictional (and scary).
Does this have anything to do with EA's "Spore" game coming out soon? That creature above sure looks like something from the Spore Creature Creator.
Michael, Melbourne, Australia