A tooth that almost ended a frontman's life? The Prince of Darkness being bested by an ATV? Things
looked grim for many of these celebrities, but luckily they managed to beat the odds.
In 1984, legendary actor Burt Reynolds was hard at work filming "City Heat" when he was injured.
Reynolds revealed to TV Guide that he broke his jaw and shattered his temporomandibular joint,
resulting in pain he described as worse than a migraine. He was prescribed the
sleeping medication Halcion, but he became addicted and continued taking
it for four years. At one point, he took five to six pills at a time.
Reynolds attempted to overcome his addiction, but he didn't go about it safely. Instead of
weaning himself off with the help of medical professionals, he quit Halcion cold turkey. This
caused his body to lapse into a coma for eight to nine hours in an LA hospital. Reynolds described
having an out-of-body experience at the time in which he heard the doctors tell his then-wife,
Loni Anderson, that she needed to say her final goodbyes. He told TV Guide,
"I was taking 50 pills a day. Fifty! Doctors told me if I had taken one more,
I would have died. It was that simple."
The near-death experience changed his outlook. Reynolds did check himself
into rehab decades later after back surgery reintroduced his addiction.
He recovered and lived to the age of 82; he died on September 6, 2018.
"I'll tell ya one thing. Drugs is not the answer."
On March 2, 1994, the lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, spent the evening with his wife,
Courtney Love. The two had been apart for over a month,
and Cobain was depressed — something he'd dealt with for some time. Love told Rolling Stone,
"He hated everything, everybody. Hated, hated, hated. He called me from Spain, crying."
The couple came together in Rome and enjoyed room service
and a bottle of champagne throughout the evening.
When Love awoke the following day, she found her husband lying on the floor, completely
unresponsive. At some point during the night, he'd ingested as many as 50 doses of Rohypnol. The
overdose left Cobain comatose and bound for the hospital. Doctors quickly pumped his stomach and
he regained consciousness later in the afternoon, but his mental health never fully recovered.
Many believed Cobain's overdose was a suicide attempt. While that's up for debate by his fans
and those who knew him best, in the end, Cobain did die by suicide the following
month. On April 5, 1994, the singer was found dead in his home at the age of 27.
Seth Binzer, who is best known as Shifty Shellshock, has a well-documented history of
substance abuse. The former Crazy Town frontman was one of the participants of "Celebrity Rehab
with Dr. Drew," having appeared in 13 episodes of the VH1 series. He then appeared in 16 episodes
of "Sober House," so he spent much of the aughts in and out of recovery. Unfortunately,
his struggles with addiction continued, and in 2012, they finally caught up with him.
On March 29, 2012, Binzer lost consciousness and was admitted to the hospital. According to TMZ,
his hospitalization was believed to be the result of drug use. While it hasn't
been publicly confirmed what put him in a coma, he likely overdosed. At the time,
Binzer was scheduled for a pre-trial hearing following a February 2012
arrest for cocaine possession and assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
Binzer entered the hospital in a coma and was placed on a ventilator;
he remained this way for nearly two days before regaining consciousness. When he
finally did wake from his coma, he set his life on a new path. He began working with a drug and
alcohol treatment center and was spared jail time when he finally stood before a judge. Binzer was
given three years of probation and was able to pursue his sobriety free from incarceration.
On October 13, 2015, Lamar Odom was found unconscious at the Love Ranch in Crystal,
Nevada. The former NBA forward had been staying at the brothel since October 10
and was found by two women who went to check on him. He was quickly taken to the hospital,
where he was stabilized and intubated. While it wasn't apparent immediately,
it was later revealed that his coma was a result of an overdose.
Odom had six heart attacks and twelve strokes while comatose, leading doctors to suspect he
might lose motor function and speech skills if he recovered. His coma lasted for three days,
and according to ex-wife Khloe Kardashian, doctors discovered a wide array of drugs in
his system. She remained at her ex-husband's side throughout his medical crisis.
Given the severity of his condition,
Odom's recovery is incredible. He told Kevin Hart on his YouTube show "Cold As Balls,"
"All my doctors that see me say I'm a walking miracle."
When he first came out of his coma, he couldn't walk or talk, and he never thought he'd play
basketball again. Fortunately, he recovered and went on to work in the cannabis industry
via Rich Soil Organics, as it helped him during his rehabilitation. Additionally,
Odom now owns and operates several Odom Wellness Treatment Centers in California.
In August 1999, Martin Lawrence was trying to lose weight. Specifically,
the actor was looking to shed some pounds for an upcoming role. Unfortunately, Lawrence didn't go
about it safely; while he was exercising, he was doing so in a manner nobody ever should.
In an effort to drop as much water weight as possible, Lawrence ran through the streets of
California wearing several layers of clothing. While he surely sweated out a lot of water, he
also increased his body temperature to a dangerous 107 degrees. It also didn't help that the
temperature in Conejo Valley, California, reached upwards of 100 degrees during his hour-long run.
When he returned home, he collapsed from heat exhaustion and slipped into a three-day coma.
When Lawrence arrived at the hospital, he was in critical and unstable condition, requiring
cold water, ice, and fans to cool down his core temperature. Fortunately, he recovered after
spending three days on a ventilator. A significant concern of heat exhaustion is kidney damage,
and Lawrence experienced this early in his medical crisis. This, too, passed, and all of his organs
suffered no permanent damage from what can only be described as a near-death experience.
Jayceon Taylor, best known as The Game, lived a dangerous life before hitting
it big. Long before he was receiving Grammy Award nominations and releasing hit albums,
Taylor was a gang member and drug dealer. According to HipHopDX, he explained,
"Back then, I didn't care if I lived or died,
and that was normal to me. I never expected nor cared to live past 25 years old."
This nearly became a self-fulfilling prophecy because, on October 1, 2001,
he was shot five times in his apartment and almost died. He was able to get to a
phone and call for an ambulance, but he didn't remain conscious for long. Taylor
sustained severe injuries and slipped into a coma that lasted for three days.
Fortunately, he recovered and decided to change his life. He asked his brother to buy him classic
albums by some of his favorite hip-hop artists, and he began writing his own rhymes. He used the
money he earned from selling drugs to lay down some tracks in a studio, and in 2005 — with the
help of his mentor Dr. Dre — he launched his debut album, "The Documentary." Since then, Taylor has
gone multi-platinum, earned numerous accolades, and has completely turned his life around.
"I thank God for granting me the opportunity to be a father. It's like the greatest gift ever."
On August 6, 1973, Stevie Wonder was making his way around the U.S. to promote his latest album,
"Innervisions." Wonder was on his way to a radio station in Durham, North Carolina
driven by his cousin, John Wesley Harris. While Wonder was sleeping in the front passenger seat,
the car slammed into the back of a flatbed truck outside Salisbury, North Carolina. The
accident shattered the car's windshield, and conflicting reports suggest a log or piece
of wood may have slammed into his head, as he was bleeding profusely from several injuries.
Wonder's entourage immediately stopped and rendered aid, rushing the singer to a local
hospital. He was then transferred to another facility in Winston-Salem and remained in a
coma for the next four days. While visiting, Ira Tucker Jr. sang "Higher Ground" to Wonder,
who began moving his fingers in time with the song. Before long, he emerged from the coma
and was responsive, but he wasn't released from the hospital for another two weeks.
In addition to his more apparent injuries, Wonder lost his sense of smell and experienced recurring
headaches, though these symptoms eventually subsided. He was out of commission for a
long time following the accident, forcing his scheduled spring tour to be postponed;
it would be several months before he was able to perform again. His
next show came in January 1974 at the Rainbow Theater in London,
England. While he did recover, Wonder's forehead was permanently scarred from the accident.
In July 1986, the Grateful Dead nearly lost its lead singer
Jerry Garcia to a dental infection. According to the Associated Press,
"[Garcia was] hospitalized after slipping
into a diabetic coma resulting from an infection caused by an abscessed tooth."
The infection was so severe that it put Garcia in
a coma for five days. Fortunately, he did recover, but not quickly.
Garcia later spoke about his time in a coma, explaining to Relix magazine,
"My main experience was one of furious activity and tremendous struggle in a sort of futuristic,
space-ship vehicle with insectoid presences. After I came out of my coma,
I had this image of myself as these little hunks of protoplasm that were stuck together
kind of like stamps with perforations between them that you could snap off."
When Garcia awoke, he could no longer play the guitar and had to relearn. Considering his level
of skill, it took some time before he felt he was ready to perform at the same level as he did
before the coma. He began by playing low-key shows in small venues, and on December 15,
he rejoined his band for a three-night concert at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum.
Marianne Faithfull has had more than a few near-death experiences throughout her life,
but the one that nearly ended it all came in the summer of 1969. Faithfull was in Sydney,
Australia, with her then-boyfriend, Mick Jagger, when she overdosed on sleeping pills. The overdose
occurred on July 9, and Faithfull was rushed to St. Vincent's Hospital. She
remained for several weeks, though she wasn't comatose during her entire stay.
Faithfull wrote about her coma in her 1994 autobiography, "Faithfull." In the book,
she described her experience, detailing how she had a conversation with Jagger's recently
deceased bandmate Brian Jones as she slipped into unconsciousness. At the end of their talk,
Jones asked Faithfull to join him in the afterlife; she declined and awoke six days later.
Faithfull recovered from her overdose, but it wouldn't be her last brush with death. The singer
became addicted to heroin in the early 1970s, which she described in her autobiography, writing,
"At that point, I entered one of the outer levels of Hell."
It took her a decade to kick the drug, but she succeeded. Faithfull also survived hepatitis C,
breast cancer, and COVID-19, setting her on the unfortunate path of Long COVID.
Ozzy Osbourne has had his fair share of close calls due to what bandmate Tony Iommi
described as "the most unhealthy lifestyle of all of us." Still, it wasn't Osbourne's
penchant for cocaine in the 1970s or his excessive drinking that nearly killed him;
it was an ATV. On December 8, 2004, Osbourne was riding around on an all-terrain vehicle when he
got into an accident on his English country estate. Osbourne's bodyguard, Sam Ruston,
rushed his boss to the hospital, where he began his road to recovery.
Osbourne was comatose for eight days as his body healed from a broken collarbone,
eight fractured ribs, and one fractured vertebra. The singer later told the Sunday Mirror,
"If it wasn't for Sam, I probably wouldn't be here. He had to bring me back to life
twice. [...] I'll never go near one of those damn bikes again. I am lucky to be here today
and not paralyzed. The doctors tell me every day it could have been a lot worse. I could be dead."
The accident resulted in various metal rods and pins being placed in Osbourne's body.
Although he recovered from the coma, a later fall dislodged his hardware.
The resulting injuries forced Osbourne to cancel all of his events in 2019,
but he eventually recovered from that as well, according to NME.
Throughout much of the 1990s, Sharon Stone was a major movie star,
having appeared in films like "Casino," "Basic Instinct," and "Total Recall."
That all changed after she had a massive stroke in 2001. Stone revealed in her
opening remarks at the "Raising Our Voices" luncheon hosted by The Hollywood Reporter,
"I had a one percent chance of survival. I had a nine-day brain bleed."
Stone remained in a coma during those nine days.
One of the reasons it was such a close call is that she didn't go to the hospital until the third
or fourth day of her stroke. She required surgery to address the brain bleed, but it would take a
month before doctors could estimate whether or not she might survive. The actor later explained that
she spent the next seven years recovering from her stroke while fighting for custody of her son.
Stone was effectively dropped as a Hollywood "it girl" during this time,
and she struggled to find work. She told Variety,
"I was so grateful to Bernard Arnault, who rescued me by giving me a Dior contract.
But I had to remortgage my house. I lost everything I had. I lost my
place in the business. I was like, the hottest movie star, you know?"
While Stone found little work in Hollywood,
she spent 20 years working for the World Health Organization.
Shayne Lamas had a terrible medical crisis resulting from a pregnancy complication in
February 2010. She and her husband, Nik Richie, were expecting their second child, but after Lamas
collapsed, paramedics were called to the couple's Orange County, California home. She was rushed
to the hospital where doctors diagnosed internal bleeding around her uterus, though they couldn't
determine the cause. A specialist was called in to assist, but sadly Lamas lost the baby.
The miscarriage caused her heart to stop beating. Her husband explained to TMZ,
"Shayne had a life-saving emergency surgery. She is on a ventilator system
and is in a sedation-induced coma. Her vital signs are now currently stable."
"Shayne's just lucky to be alive."
Unable to breathe on her own, Lamas remained in a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks.
She did later recover, and the couple had another baby the following year.
Their second child, Lyon Lamas-Richie, was born via surrogate on July 4, 2011.
Michelle Hurst, who is probably best known for playing Miss Claudette on "Orange is the
New Black," was in a car accident in late December 2013. While information about the
accident hasn't been made public, it was severe enough that doctors had to place
her into a medically induced coma for 16 days to treat her various injuries.
According to TMZ, Hurst was treated at UNC Chapel Hill Hospital in North Carolina,
where she remained for recovery and rehabilitation. News of the accident,
the coma, and Hurst's recovery didn't hit the trades until mid-January, which is one of the
reasons few details of the incident have emerged. When the accident was made public,
the cast and crew of "Orange is the New Black" came together in support of their co-star.
The team put together a fundraising campaign on YouCaring with a $20,000
goal to cover medical expenses. Ultimately, the campaign raised just shy of $18,000,
which was sent to Hurst's sister. It's unclear how long she was out of commission, but she
was eventually back to work, appearing in an episode of "Broad City" that aired in March 2014,
followed by an appearance on "Last Tango in Halifax" the following year.
"When people think of motorcycle daredevils, one name comes to mind: Evel Knievel"
It may not come as a shock to learn that Evel Knievel was once in a coma. The legendary
stuntman and daredevil spent his professional life making the most death-defying motorcycle jumps,
and they didn't always go according to plan. Knievel would injure himself every so often,
but he always put his helmet back on, got back on his bike, and continued entertaining the
masses. That said, one stunt on November 17, 1967, nearly ended his career and his life.
Knievel had wanted to jump the fountains at Caesar's Palace since the moment he saw them,
so he set everything up to do so. After performing his pre-show jumps to warm up
the crowd, Knievel lined himself up for the main attraction. During the stunt,
he hit the ramp as his motorcycle began decelerating. This caused him to come up short,
throwing him over his handlebars as he slammed into a parking lot.
Knievel crushed his pelvis and femur; the daredevil also
fractured his skull and several bones. He was rendered comatose for 29 days,
which his family refuted in the 2015 Johnny Knoxville documentary "Being Evel." Despite this,
news of Knievel's coma has remained the official story in various reports, including Time Magazine,
Knievel's obituary, and many others. It's possible Knievel exaggerated his injuries for publicity,
but one thing that's certain is he remained in the hospital until February 12, 1968.
Gary Busey's career saw a meteoric rise in popularity through the late '70s thanks to
an Academy Award nomination for best actor for his work in "The Buddy Holly
Story." He went on to appear in numerous high-profile films well into the 1980s,
including roles in "Lethal Weapon," "Eye of the Tiger," and "Silver Bullet."
But he almost lost it all, thanks to a motorcycle accident on December 4, 1988.
Busey was riding his Harley Davidson without a helmet when he slipped on
a patch of gravel. He engaged his break, causing him to fly off the bike and land
directly on his head. Busey described the accident in an interview with The Guardian:
"I went off the bike without a helmet, hit my head into a [curb],
split my skull, passed away after brain surgery, and went to the other side."
The accident put him into a coma for over a month. His injuries were significant, requiring emergency
neurosurgery to save his life. Ultimately, his doctors managed to put him back together, but
the incident left him with permanent brain damage. Busey returned to acting and has been in dozens of
movies over the years, but he never regained his level of success from the '70s and early '80s.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357.