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 Corinne Bailey Rae said elsewhere, not written here
When my first husband died, because it felt like my life was over, and it was challenging to keep in life at the time.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 September 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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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.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 May 2018 source ↗
Anna Friel English actress
I nearly died by burst ovarian cyst in 2001. I was doing the front cover of a magazine and someone said, “Can you not pull your tummy in?” It turned out that I had been carrying two litres of blood in my stomach. I was rushed to hospital the next morning and nearly died of septicaemia. They had to give me two blood transfusions. Had it been an hour later it would have been bye bye.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 10 August 2019 source ↗
I had some gynaecological issues that were very sudden, about 18 months ago, and felt that I might be dying. I wasn’t but it was quite serious.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 November 2025 source ↗

More from Corinne Bailey Rae

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Question Which living person do you most admire, and why? 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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