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 Orlando Bloom said elsewhere, not written here
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 ↗

Others on this question

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A flight from Paraguay to South Africa that went badly wrong. The plane nearly fell out of the sky and the oxygen masks dropped. People were screaming but the pilot saved the day, and then apparently never flew again.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2025 source ↗
Terry O'Neill British photographer
I was invited to Sharon Tate’s house the night she was murdered. I declined the invite due to jetlag.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 January 2017 source ↗
During my severe clinical depression in 2016. I was at Piccadilly station in Manchester and a train was coming.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 October 2019 source ↗
When I had cancer. I was having a shave and thought: “Are you meant to have a big hard lump on one side of your neck?”
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 February 2025 source ↗

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