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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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Julian Sands British actor
In the early 90s, in the Andes, caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000ft with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 May 2020 source ↗
Sara Cox English broadcaster
Modelling in South Korea, aged 19. After a party, I flopped into bed, lit a big candle and balanced it on top of a massive box of matches. I created my own firework display when the candle burnt down and set fire to it. It made the biggest noise ever which, luckily, woke me from my slightly boozy slumber.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 August 2019 source ↗
Felicity Jones British actress
Nearly crashing into a train on one film, almost falling out of a hot-air balloon on another, narrowly avoiding getting knocked over by a taxi …
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 May 2023 source ↗
Lance Black American screenwriter, director, producer and activist
On a flight between Beijing and London with Team GB divers. There was a fire on the plane. We landed on a long-abandoned strip in Siberia. Two days later, the same flight attendants told us we had beaten the odds by surviving.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 June 2019 source ↗

More from Corinne Bailey Rae

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Question Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them? Values & belief
My mum, for the way that she brought up her three children and managed to make her money work. She worked as a cleaner for all these families we went to church with. She would cycle there with my little sister on the back of her bike – we didn’t have a car. She had an amazing mind for planning and organising so that we got to do ballet, we went to Brownies.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 September 2023 source ↗

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