Jon Sopel: How close have you come to dying?

The question

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 said elsewhere, not written here

I’ve had motorcycle accidents – I had one where I ended up in intensive care. But if you are on a frontline – which I have been – and people start shooting at you – which they have done – you put yourself in quite considerable danger. So: on a moving frontline in northern Afghanistan in 2001.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 209 →

Adeel Akhtar British actor

I fell off a ladder, landed on my back, got up and was fine.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 19 May 2018 source ↗

Esther Freud

My parents died within four days of each other. I was engulfed as I ran from one bedside to another.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 4 July 2026 source ↗

Beverley Knight Singer and stage actor

On a flight to Newcastle, when we had terrible storms. The plane dropped quickly and the oxygen masks fell down. We had to land in Manchester.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 July 2022 source ↗

Rory Kinnear English actor

I inadvertently rubbed the milky residue of a toxic cactus plant into my eye while filming Women In Love in the desert in Namibia, and my body went into anaphylactic shock as the producer sped me to a clinic 50 miles away.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 August 2017 source ↗