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 Jonnie Peacock said elsewhere, not written here
When I was five and the doctors walked in and said to my mum: “I am not sure if you will be taking him home.”

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 27 January 2018 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 214 →
Maybe in the 1990s, but I was so selfish at the time, I wouldn’t really have noticed what was going on.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 January 2024 source ↗
Shakin' Stevens Welsh rock and roll singer and songwriter
I had a cardiac arrest in 2010. I also had a close call in the early days in Cardiff when I was in a band called the Denims. We were in a van driving along a narrow mountain road. Somebody wanted to go to the toilet, so we stopped, and afterwards the driver took a wrong turn and we went careering down the mountain. Everyone was screaming, it was like a nightmare. At the bottom was the railway line, but the van stopped just in time. We were very lucky.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 February 2023 source ↗
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 ↗
Kevin Pietersen English cricketer
Being charged by a white rhino on a walking safari. It came running towards us and I froze, which is the right thing to do. If it had hit us, it would have been goodnight.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 June 2019 source ↗

More from Jonnie Peacock

View profile →

More on death & what remains

Also answered this

Judy Murray, Simone Biles, Harry Redknapp, Bradley Wiggins, Kevin Pietersen, Chris Bonington

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer