OB
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.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 March 2021 source ↗
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.
Others on this question
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Cynthia Nixon
American actress and politician
When I was 13, I was on a bicycle and got hit by a taxi in New York.
Simone Biles
United States artistic gymnast
In dreams, but that’s about it.
Cory Taylor
Novelist and screenwriter
How many times I could have died before now, and in how many different ways. And yet I came close only once: a speeding sedan ran a red light, hit three other vehicles, and jack-knifed into my rear wheel split second after I’d stepped out of my parked car. A bystander described the scene to me later. “You were a millimetre away from losing your legs,” he said.
Monty Don
English horticulturist, broadcaster, and writer
Despite a stroke, cancer as a child and various dramas with chainsaws and tractors, the closest was probably when I choked on a lamb chop 25 years ago. Sarah performed the Heimlich manoeuvre and the lamb shot out.
More from Orlando Bloom
View profile →When I was about to embark on filming The Lord Of The Rings, prior to any kind of fame or notoriety, full of hope and dreams, and excitement of the adventures ahead.
I lost my poodle, Mighty. He was out of my sight for just seven minutes; he went out on an adventure and didn’t come back, and was taken by a coyote, I think. It was awful, really painful; he taught me about love and loyalty, and how the connection between living beings can be.
An actor or stuntman: I loved Lee Majors in The Fall Guy.
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