Former EastEnders actor Sid Owen has revealed he had to undergo emergency surgery after being hit in the face with a golf ball.
Sid – best known for playing Ricky Butcher in the BBC soap – was on holiday in Thailand when he was struck by the golf ball, which shattered his jaw and knocked out “several teeth”.
The incident left the soap star in need of reconstructive surgery, and he says he’s still “in agony” more than a month later.
Explaining the incident to The Sun, Sid said: “I was stood about 10 feet away when it hit me, hard, and of course it hurt like hell, but it was the shock factor too.
“I remember seeing two teeth fly straight out of my mouth but it turned out to be a fracture in my face and a broken jaw, along with another tooth embedded into my jaw.”
“I had to have a bone graft, followed by several rounds of dental surgery because it was too much damage to try to treat it all at once,” he continued.
Because of the accident, Sid has been told that he’s still not allowed to fly home, and has been in Thailand since January.
However, although he was given an emergency extension on his visa, this has now expired, meaning he’ll have to complete his surgery in the UK.
“It has just been five weeks of hell, total hell,” he admitted. “I came here for a detox to relax, as I have been doing sober for January annually for 20 years, and I was nearly ready to come home when it happened.”
Sid added: “I don’t really know anyone out here now, so I’m stuck totally on my own. It’s depressing, especially when you can’t sleep because of the pain.
“So you just lie awake thinking about it and feeling isolated and very low. It has been a very dark period.
“I’ve lost 12kg, almost two stone, because I can’t eat, and the insurers have told me they’re having to deal with lots of extra travel claims and problems because of coronavirus.
“On top of that they told me that if I was to pick up the virus while I’m out here then I won’t be covered for it. It just feels like one thing after another at the moment.
“I’ve never even really had to take antibiotics or serious painkillers in my life but now I’m relying on them to get through.”
Despite the horrific incident, Sid added that he’s “almost been lucky”, with doctors telling him that had the golf ball hit a spot two inches higher he’d “probably be dead from that sort of impact”.
It was recently reported that Sid’s former on-screen wife Patsy Palmer would be returning to EastEnders this year to reprise her role as Bianca Jackson, following her stint on The Masked Singer earlier this year.
“I can’t really disclose anything at the moment,” he told The Sun about a potential return to the soap. “But I have had to turn stuff down and some auditions due to it so it is really costing me. All I want to do is get home.”
In 2012 Sid claimed that he’d retired from acting permanently, having opened a restaurant in France.
He hasn’t acted since, but did briefly return to our screens in 2016 as a contestant on the infamous Channel 4 reality series The Jump.