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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.

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Others on this question

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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.
Recorded Edited extract from Dying: A Memoir, Text Publishing, The Guardian, 17 May 2016 source ↗
Carl Barât English musician
Probably when I didn’t sleep for a week on drugs in 2009. I’d had a lot of meth and my heart felt like it was giving out. I remember climbing over balconies really high up, and I thought I was going to die, until I eventually fell asleep in someone’s garden.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 March 2022 source ↗
I’ve had motorcycle accidents – I had one where I ended up in intensive care. But if you are on a frontline – which I have been – and people start shooting at you – which they have done – you put yourself in quite considerable danger. So: on a moving frontline in northern Afghanistan in 2001.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 12 October 2024 source ↗

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