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 Adam Clayton said elsewhere, not written here
When I was drinking, there were many times when I was out for the night and didn’t come back for a week.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 December 2024 source ↗

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 ↗
Courtney Pine British jazz musician
We were doing a tour in Japan and as our plane landed, it rose again, out of the blue. About 10 years later there was this programme about 10 of the nearest misses, and it was my flight. There was another plane on the runway and we nearly landed on top of it. I didn’t know until 10 years later.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 September 2022 source ↗
Julian Sands British actor
In the early 90s, in the Andes, caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000ft with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 May 2020 source ↗

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