Mathew Horne: 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 Mathew Horne said elsewhere, not written here

Last Christmas I was clipped by a train. Mum was dying so my head was elsewhere. I was walking home and had to cross one of those crossings that say, “Stop, look and listen.” I didn’t do any of those things, and I had my headphones in so I couldn’t even hear the train. It clipped my left elbow.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 December 2019 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 209 →

Randy Pausch Professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design

Today is a pretty important day. It was August 15th, 2007, when I was told I likely had "three to six months of good health left." Today is six months from that day. Just to prove I'm still alive, here I am, holding today's New York Times! I rode my bike today; the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy are hurting my stamina some, but I bet I can still run a quarter mile faster than most Americans. The doctors weren't wrong; they always said that if the palliative chemo worked, I'd buy more time, but that it was a long shot. And the doctors have done a brilliant job of tweaking my regimen to help my odds. How much longer this will work is hard to know, but I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left, no matter how many or how few of them I get.

Recorded Pausch's own update page on his Carnegie Mellon faculty site, Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science, 15 February 2008 source ↗

Julie Hesmondhalgh English actress and narrator

Childbirth. And the wheel of our camper van coming clean off on the M1.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 February 2018 source ↗

Brendan Gleeson Irish actor and director

Getting knocked down by a bus. The experience left me with the exhilaration of life enhanced.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 31 December 2016 source ↗

Krishnan Guru-Murthy British journalist

I’ve dodged a couple of bullets in dodgy war zones, but I suspect the closest I’ve come to death was a reckless, drunken brush with a waltzer at a student funfair. It nearly chopped me in half.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 January 2021 source ↗