"A mystery to science": After an operation, Laetitia woke up speaking with an English accent

Imagine waking up after surgery with a foreign accent . It seems unthinkable, but that's the strange mishap that happened to Laetitia. In a video published by Le Petit Courrier , this 47-year-old mother living near Montval-sur-Loir, in Sarthe, recounts waking up from her tonsil surgery in June 2014, speaking with a strong English accent.

"When I woke up, I had this accent. I saw the surgeon there after the operation. He didn't mention any specific problems, so I wasn't worried," Laetitia told the local newspaper.

Despite post-operative appointments, it's clear that, 11 years later, this way of speaking has never left her. "On examination, everything is normal. I don't know what to tell you, you're a mystery to science," a doctor told her three months after her operation, before retiring. "The real shock was for my family who live in another region. When I spoke to them on the phone, they thought it was a joke."

While Laeticia's story may seem like a laugh, her condition is serious. The woman from Sarthe suffers from "foreign accent syndrome," a rare disorder that usually occurs following a head injury or brain shock.

In Laeticia's case, it appears that something happened while she was under general anesthesia. Patients usually wake up without any particular problems, but it could be that an area of ​​the brain was slightly less well vascularized.

"I went to see speech therapists and ENT specialists. They told me they couldn't do anything for me," explains Laetitia. Today, the Sarthe resident says she no longer pays attention to it.

"It's something that's part of me," she says, even though she says she still hears "her old voice" in her head.

In everyday life, some words have become difficult to pronounce. "For example, I can't say 'turtledove'. With the T and the R, it's not easy to say. So I say 'colombe' (...). My dog ​​is called Vadrouille and has trouble obeying me (...) She probably doesn't understand me," Laetitia confides with a slight laugh.

Despite her accent, Laetitia doesn't speak English any better than she used to. "I have the basics, what you learn at school. But nothing more," she explains. "Often, when I'm at the checkout, I say I'm French and have an English accent. If people aren't curious, it's all there is to it. Otherwise, I patiently explain."

Laetitia is one of the few people affected by this syndrome in the world, of which there are about fifty. One of the first known cases dates back to the 1940s. A Norwegian woman began speaking with a German accent after being hit by shrapnel. Another case, in 2011, an American woman, following an operation, woke up with an Eastern European accent.