A West Yorkshire man thought he was closing eyes to go to sleep - he woke up three months later after having a stroke

"I can remember it being dark,” he recalls. “I thought I just closed my eyes to go to sleep for five or 10 minutes - it ended up being three months. I woke up in Pinderfields Hospital on the stroke ward.”

Basil, of Castleford, was driving home from a friend’s house in June 2015 when he started to experience stroke symptoms. He lost use of an arm and a leg and lost his vision completely.

“I was coming back from a friend's house, it just went blank and I couldn't see anything,” he explains. “I thought 'this is strange - there's no cars on the road'. I didn't realise I'd lost my sight.

"It came back after about 10 seconds or so. When I tried getting out of the car, my arm wouldn't work but I thought it was just a dead arm. My leg didn't work either.

"I crawled to the front door, somehow, I don't know how, and got myself into the house. I can't remember much after that point. I can remember being on the floor in the living room and my arm wouldn't move and my leg wouldn't move. I thought 'I need to call for help'. Somehow, I don't know how, I called for help.”

Waking up after three months had gone by proved distressing for Basil, who was left with a “blank in his life”. He says: “No words can describe it. It's just a blank in your life. There's no memory at all to cover it - it's distressing to think about it There's nothing I can do to get that memory back. It's gone - it's a blank in my life.

"When I woke up, I was quite fearful because I didn't know where I was or what had happened. I didn't realise I'd had a stroke until I got it explained to me.”

Basil had to stop working as a result of the stroke and is still undergoing therapy to get his arm back in working condition. He is now keen for people to be aware of stroke symptoms and seek medical advice if they are at high risk of a stroke like he was.

According to the NHS, stroke incidence is higher in some ethnic minority groups. Basil says: “Little did I know, I was on a high-risk list because of my background, I never used to go to the doctors.”

As part of NHS England’s ‘Help Us, Help You’ Act F.A.S.T. campaign, a new series of portraits have been released featuring stroke survivors and the people who saved them by recognising signs and calling 999.

The portraits reflect the significant life moments the stroke survivors have lived to celebrate since their stroke, spotlighting the crucial role a stroke ‘saver’ can have in survival.

Basil is also an advocate for acting as soon as possible if you experience the signs of stroke. The F.A.S.T. acronym aims to remind people that the key signs are a face that has fallen on one side (F), arm weakness (A) and slurred speech (S) – which indicate that it’s time (T) to call 999.