Lance Black: 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 Lance Black said elsewhere, not written here

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.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 June 2019 source ↗

Others on this question

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Kim Wilde English pop singer

When I was three and had meningitis.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 August 2019 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 ↗

Nina Riggs Poet and essayist

None of this was supposed to happen. At 38, I wasn’t supposed to lie on my back in the E.R. on a late December morning and be told by a teary radiation oncology resident that the pain I’d been having for two months — that I’d been assured was from having a weak core after months of chemo — was actually from a tumor that had devoured my L2 vertebra. John wasn’t supposed to have to hold me up on the toilet. Put my pants on for me. Do Christmas Eve for the children without me. I’m not supposed to be thinking about where he will sit and hold my hand as I take my last breath.

Recorded The New York Times, Modern Love, 23 September 2016 source ↗

Edwina Currie Former British politician, broadcaster and writer