How close have you come to death?

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.

Recorded Shakin' Stevens said elsewhere, not written here
I had a cardiac arrest in 2010. I also had a close call in the early days in Cardiff when I was in a band called the Denims. We were in a van driving along a narrow mountain road. Somebody wanted to go to the toilet, so we stopped, and afterwards the driver took a wrong turn and we went careering down the mountain. Everyone was screaming, it was like a nightmare. At the bottom was the railway line, but the van stopped just in time. We were very lucky.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 February 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 210 →
Sara Pascoe English comedian, presenter, writer
Ten years ago, I went to visit my dad in Australia. I walked to the edge of a cliff and looked over and tripped. I righted myself but my head was over the edge. No one saw it.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 July 2018 source ↗
Roger McGough
A picnic on the beach at Seaforth during the war. Somehow I managed to wriggle through a barbed-wire fence and run across a minefield. My teenage aunt Kat bravely followed suit and rescued me.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 January 2026 source ↗
Ian McEwan British novelist and screenwriter
Having a gun held to my head at a May Day rally during the revolution in Grenada. I was mistaken for a CIA agent.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 August 2018 source ↗

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