The question
How close have you come to dying?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
In 2012 I stared into the eyes of someone who had just stabbed a man in the neck on the street. I was trying to help the victim; for a very long three or four seconds, I thought he was going to come for me next.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 August 2018 source ↗
After a significant traumatic experience when I was looking for reasons to stay alive.
When I was seven or eight, I got run over and was actually under the car, which was scary. I just ran out; it was totally my fault. I was fine – all I got was a tiny scar on my knee.
I’ve dodged a couple of bullets in dodgy war zones, but I suspect the closest I’ve come to death was a reckless, drunken brush with a waltzer at a student funfair. It nearly chopped me in half.
On a school trip to Wales when I was 12. My canoe capsized and got stuck upside down next to a rock. I was underwater for about 30 seconds but it felt a lot longer.
When I was a teenager I worked as a lifeguard, and one of our duties was to clean the showers. It essentially involved cleaning people’s pubes from the drain.
Just to be remembered at all would be enough.
Andy Serkis, Omid Djalili, Julian Clary, Felicity Jones, Nicola Walker, Gemma Whelan
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