Stroke nurses techie off the bench

A former engineer left disabled from a work accident has just ended two decades of joblessness after a stroke he suffered transformed him into a digital artist.



Ken Walters, 51, has won a contract to create digital creatures for EA Games – the first job he's had since 1986, when a forklift truck crushed him against a wall.



In the following 19 years of depression, and scrapping around to earn a living on disability benefits, a wheel-chair bound Mr Walters suffered two heart attacks.



Seeming to add to his woes, he then suffered a stroke in 2005, yet the cerebral haemorrhage reportedly "rewired" his brain to an undiscovered artistic side.



Doodles of animals followed and, using his technical know-how, he created software to put them onto computers; ideal for EA's latest educational game on evolution.



Mr Walters, from Ormskirk, Lancashire, told the Times that his contract with the games company has so far paid out a total of £30,000.



He reportedly reflected :"Wherever this new love for art has come from, it's certainly changed my life for ever."