Southend Student Emerges from Coma with 'Psychic Powers'

When Rob Ball was viciously attacked outside a Southend nightclub in 2009, the 6'8" (2.02m) "gentle giant" was in a coma for two weeks and his family thought he'd never recover. However, since waking up, the former nightclub promoter discovered he had what appeared to be psychic powers.

Ball, then 23, was in a car park after a night out when he was punched in the side of the head, causing lasting trauma to the left side of his brain. He lost most of his memory and had to learn basic skills such as walking all over again.

Speaking soon after the devastating attack Ball said: "It feels like my head is going to blow up and I'm convinced I'm going to die all the time now, because it's had such an impact on my life.

"I get deja vu all the time. I don't know if it's something to do with the head injury, but I keep thinking 'I remember this before', and think something is about to go wrong."

However, soon after leaving hospital Ball began to hear voices in his head that told him things about other people:

"Soon they were so clear that I was telling people what popped in my head about them – often strangers in the street. I was getting messages predicting illness, love and death. People are shocked when I can tell them personal details."

Ball's mother, Chrissie Bacon, says he found her keys when she lost them in her own mum's house. The 27-year-old has also predicted the sex of seven unborn babies and says he now wants to be a professional psychic.

The Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust charity says it has never heard of anyone claiming to be psychic following head trauma, but has had cases of people acquiring new skills or adopting foreign accents.