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 Jason Donovan said elsewhere, not written here
Maybe in the 1990s, but I was so selfish at the time, I wouldn’t really have noticed what was going on.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 January 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

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Robert Carlyle Scottish actor
I was on a plane in India and I thought it was going to crash. It was an old, rickety thing. It was pre-children - I wouldn't do it now.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 February 2008 source ↗
Julian Lloyd Webber British cellist and conductor
Twice I should have died in car accidents when both my cars were written off. I was completely unhurt; the cello was completely unhurt, too. A complete miracle.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 July 2023 source ↗
Orlando Bloom English actor
At 20, I fell from a fourth-floor window and broke my back. For four days they said I’d never walk again, but I had a miraculous recovery.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 March 2021 source ↗
Edmund Hillary Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
I had one experience on the ice-fall with Tenzing. We were actually descending after having been further up the mountain, and it was getting close towards dark so we wanted to get through the ice-fall before darkness fell. We were roped together, but I was rushing down ahead in the lead. About halfway down there was a narrow crevasse. I guess it was about four feet wide, but just a bit too wide to step across. On the lower lip was a great chunk of ice stuck against the ice wall, and we’d used that as sort of a stepping stone to get over the gap. I came rushing down the hill without thinking too carefully. I just leapt in the air and landed on the chunk of ice, whereupon the chunk of ice broke off and dropped into the crevasse with me on top of it. It was interesting how everything seemed to start going slowly, even though I was free-falling into the crevasse. My mind, obviously, was working very quickly indeed. The great chunk of ice started tipping over and I realized, if I wasn’t careful, I’d be crushed between the ice and the wall of the crevasse. So I just sort of bent my knees and leapt in the air. I was still falling, but now I was a couple of feet clear of the chunk of ice. Time really seemed to pass even though I was falling clear, and I realized that unless the rope came tight fairly soon, I would come to a rather sticky end on the bottom of the crevasse. Up top, Tenzing had acted very quickly. He had thrust his ice axe into the snow, whipped the rope around it, and the rope came tight with a twang, and I was stopped and swung in against the ice wall. The great chunk of ice just carried on and smashed to smithereens at the bottom of the crevasse. Then really the rest was what I would have called a routine mountaineering matter. I had my ice axe and my crampons on my feet, so I chipped steps in the side. I was able to bridge the crevasse, and I worked my way up to the top and got safely out. I wouldn’t have said at any stage, because it all happened so quickly, fear really didn’t have much opportunity to emerge. My only idea was to get safely out of this unfortunate predicament. And of course, without Tenzing’s very competent mountaineer’s response, I certainly wouldn’t have made it. But once he had stopped me, then I was able to, using the techniques of mountaineering, to get myself safely to the top again.
Recorded Academy of Achievement interview source ↗

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