13 Stars Who Defied Death

An awful lot of celebrities have died over the past year—making Bret Michaels surviving an emergency appendectomy, a brain hemorrhage, and a stroke seem especially miraculous. The Frisky lists a dozen other celebrities who have cheated death:

• Boy George: He was injured—and just inches away from being crushed—by a disco ball when the 62-pound ball fell from the ceiling during a 1999 Culture Club rehearsal.
• Eminem: Took a handful of methadone pills—the equivalent, his doctor said, of shooting up four bags of heroin—in 2005, and nearly overdosed.
• Dustin Hoffman: Fortunately, he wasn’t in his apartment in the ’70s when the guy next door (a radical anti-war student) accidentally set off a stick of dynamite while making bombs.

• Joaquin Phoenix: His brakes gave out and his car flipped—but thanks to his seatbelt and the help of director Werner Herzog, who just happened to be passing by, he was uninjured.
• Martin Lawrence: While jogging in 100-plus degree heat in an effort to lose weight for a movie, he collapsed from heat exhaustion and fell into a coma for three days.
• Jim Caviezel: Was struck by lightning while filming The Passion of the Christ, along with an assistant director—who ended up getting struck again during filming.

For the complete list, including one celeb who nearly choked to death on a sex toy, click here. (More Bret Michaels stories.)