10 Celebrities Who Survived Near Death Experiences

There are moments where people realize how fragile life can be, even for celebrities.

Such a moment likely happened to Hollywood superstar George Clooney this past week when he was struck by a Mercedes while riding on a motorcycle in Olbia, Italy.

The crash seemed horrific as Clooney was thrown into the air after hitting the car at about 60 mph. But despite the seriousness of the accident, Clooney was treated at a hospital and released the same day.

Clooney is far from the first celebrity to narrowly escape death, scroll through to see some Hollywood legends who also faced scary near-death experiences in their lives.

Photo credit: John Shearer / WireImage

Sandra Bullock

Very close to the release of Miss Congeniality, Bullock’s private jet was landing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on a snowy day in December, 2000, when her plane skidded off the runway and into the snow.

The plane was heavily damaged in the crash, yet Bullock walked away thankfully unharmed.

“It was just a freak accident. But you know it happened and we walked away from it and we’re here,” Bullock told Entertainment Tonight of the crash at the 2001 Golden Globes. “The sheriff kept telling us ‘Now if it happened any other way, you would be dead’ and I’m like…” she added, mimicking hyperventilating.

Tracy Morgan

The comedian and actor was not as lucky in his brush with death.

On June 7, 2014, Morgan was riding on the New Jersey turnpike when a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer slammed into the back of his limo. The violent crash killed Morgan’s friend, comedian Jimmy Mack, and seriously injured Morgan, who suffered a broken leg, nose and ribs, and was left in a coma for eight days, as he also suffered a traumatic brain injury.

His remarkable recovery led to an epic return to Saturday Night Live a year later, as he has continued his recovery, he has returned to acting full time.

Christie Brinkley

On April 1, 1994, the iconic model was on a helicopter as part of a skiing trip in Telluride, Colorado. As the helicopter reached about 12,800 feet, it crashed into a mountain, leaving Brinkley and five others stranded.

The crash led Brinkley to meet her third husband, real estate developer Richard Taubman, who was the most seriously injured in the crash. The two married a few months after the helicopter crash, but the relationship didn’t even last a year before they split.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Despite a bear fight scene leading to his 2015 Oscar win, DiCaprio faced a real-life violent encounter out at sea in 2006.

The actor was diving in a shark cage in South Africa, when a great white approached.

“The great white jumped into my cage and said hello,” DiCaprio said in 2015. “And then we hung out for a little bit. They said it never happened in the 30 years that they’ve been doing that.”

He told Wired in 2015 that the great white was only about an arm’s length away from him, snacking on some tuna that was used to chum the water. Then, after a few minutes, it left.

Four years after the shark incident, DiCaprio nearly drowned in the Galapagos, when his oxygen tank began to leak and he required rescuing from Ed Norton. He also found himself in danger when he went tandem skydiving and the main chute failed to open properly.

Gloria Estefan

The singer found herself in a life-altering event on March 20, 1990. As she was traveling for her Cut Both Ways tour, her bus was struck by a tractor-trailer in a snowstorm in Pennsylvania. The collision caused Estefan to break her back, requiring a helicopter ride to the hospital and emergency surgery to implant titanium rods to save her spine.

“I was laying on the floor of the bus and when I opened my eyes and I knew right away that I had broken my back,” she told ET after the crash. “I just felt so lucky to be alive and to be okay and not paralyzed at all.”

She made a full recovery and returned to the stage in 1991.

George Clooney

Turns out, Clooney’s recent motorcycle accident was not his first terrifying accident.

The actor had his first brush with death on the set of Syriano in 2005, during a scene where his character is captured, tied to a chair and beaten. During the course of filming, he was knocked over and struck his head, which led to some serious injuries, including spinal fluid leaking from his nose.

Harrison Ford

The Star Wars and Indiana Jones star was in a scary plane crash on march 5, 2015, at the age of 72. His son, Ben, tweeted at the time that his father was down, but not out.

“At the hospital. Dad is ok. Battered, but ok!” he wrote at the time. “He is every bit the man you would think he is. He is an incredibly strong man.”

But there’s more, three years later, Ford had a near-miss when he accidentally crossed paths with a Boeing 737 carrying 110 passengers at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. Fortunately, no one was hurt and Ford humbly recalled to a Federal Aviation Administration employee, “[I’m] the schmuck that landed on the taxiway.”

50 Cent

The rapper and Power star was once shot nine times at point-blank range, lodging bullets in his hand, arm hips, legs, chest and face.

After spending 13 weeks in the hospital, the rapper used the traumatic experience as inspiration for his album and film Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.

Dustin Hoffman

This one is something you don’t hear every day.

Before he found fame in Hollywood, Hoffman was leaving the New York apartment he resided in one day when the building exploded behind him. Turns out the townhouse next door was occupied by the radical group, The Weather Underground, which accidentally detonated a bomb.

Eminem

The rapper’s addiction to drugs nearly led to the end of his life after he accidentally overdosed on methadone in 1997. A doctor later told him that he had done the equivalent of four bags of heroin at once.