I blew my nose so hard I went deaf!

Jan 24 2009 By Jonny Greatrex

A MIDLAND man went deaf – after blowing his nose too hard, and ending up in hospital.

Jon Hart, from Wolverhampton, was battling a bad cold, coughing and spluttering in misery.

But when he blew his nose, he thought that the world had been plunged into silence.

He coughed, and coughed again – but couldn’t even hear himself.

And when an anxious pal asked if he was feeling all right, Jon couldn’t catch a single word.

The 26-year-old student’s troubles had actually begun earlier, while following England’s 2006 Ashes tour. Jon had jetted to Australia in June to be at a friend’s wedding and join the Barmy Army to watch the five-test series.

When he was returning home after a night out he slipped and cracked the back of his head on a roadside kerb.

The next thing he saw were the faces of medics in a Melbourne hospital, who told him he had fractured his skull in three places, and damaged his neck. But their voices were muffled and distant.

Tests showed the cochlear in his right ear had fractured, causing fluid to leak out and damage the nerves needed for hearing.

Further X-rays revealed the cochlear in Jon’s left ear was also fractured, but by sheer luck he still had some hearing.

He spent the next three weeks in a specialist unit learning to