Chorley Taekwondo instructor back in the dojo after learning to walk again following a near-fatal stroke

Eddie Ellison, who teaches at the Euxton Church of England School on Wednesdays and Thursdays, has suffered two strokes in the past 13 years - the latter of which happened last Valentine's Day where he spent seven weeks in intensive care after a previously fitted valve which keeps the blood circulating became infected. The valve, by his own admission, was so rotten he would have been dead the next day had it not been changed. He spent 99 days in hospital where he had to then learn how to walk and move again while his older grade students looked after the club eagerly awaiting his return. Six months later in August he returned to the club.

“My fitness kept me alive”

Eddie, who has been training since 1983, told the Post: "My fitness kept me alive. The second stroke was a lot more severe. I was in hospital for 99 days and couldn't walk, move, do anything, but I wanted to get back to taekwondo as I love doing it. I came home in June and started teaching again in August and built it up from there. I am now getting a lot stronger. I can kick high but I can't spin well. I can't drive a car yet so I have two travel by train into Buckshaw Village where I either walk to the club or someone picks me up."

He is one of a few 7th Da in the country and is still hoping to go to Korea in the future to obtain his 8th Dan, and has also been a judge for taekwondo at the Commonwealth games. He also takes two trains on a Monday to teach at Ormskirk Primary School and credits his wife Caroline and their children - two-year-old Eva and four-year-old Jason with keeping him active. "You can either sit still or move and I choose to move," he said.

NHS librarian Laura Sims, 41, from Clayton-le-Woods, who has trained with Eddie since she was 19, added: "He is so dedicated and absolutely loves what he does and sharing it with other people. He really is an inspiration.”