WHEN Coronation Street's Paul Foreman dies in a moving episode tonight there’s one man who won’t be tuning in. Sam Hayden-Harler helped soap bosses and actor Peter Ash shape the traumatic storyline which will see Paul take his last breaths after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease ( MND ) 17 months ago. Sam, 35, knows he will suffer the same fate as Paul after being diagnosed with MND two years ago.
It began with a pain in his wrist and he now needs to use a wheelchair outdoors and struggles to feed himself. As part of his work to raise the profile of the condition with the Motor Neurone Disease Association , Sam talked with writers and watched Peter Ash film emotional scenes after his character was diagnosed. Instead of watching tonight’s live episode with family, Sam, 35, is steeling himself to watch it alone later this week.
Read more on MND He said: “I won't be able to watch it tonight because I want to watch it alone so I can have a good cry. "The storyline has lasted more than a year and it's sad to see it come to an end with Paul's death but that's the lived reality for many MND sufferers. There are no survivors.
” Sam met with Corrie writers when they first began crafting Paul’s tragic story and he last year went to the soap’s Manchester set to give Peter advice on the role. Sam, of Sittingbourne, Kent, said: “Peter asked me what it was he’d like to see in the role and I just said ‘please make it as honest a portrayal as you can. Most read in.