This week Ben Fogle shared the terrifying moment his ‘life flashed before his eyes’ after almost being hit by delivery van near his home in the village of Fawley.
The presenter, 50, wrote a lengthy Instagram post detailing the moment a delivery driver ‘careered around a blind bend, threw on its brakes and skidded to a halt’ just feet from where he was walking his dog.
No stranger to risking his life, the presenter has travelled the globe on a variety of adventures, with trips to Antarctica, Peru and The Congo to name a few.
In the past, Ben has detailed overcoming a flesh-eating skin disease, a ‘psychotic episode’ caused by a spiked drink and hypothermia during his travels.
MailOnline takes a look-back at Ben’s various near-death experiences…
2000 – Castaway
While less of a near-death experience but a physical strain nonetheless, Ben first rose to fame as a contestant on the series Castaway in 2000
While less of a near-death experience but a physical strain nonetheless, Ben first rose to fame as a contestant on the reality series Castaway in 2000.
Intended as a social experiment of sorts, the show saw Ben and a group of volunteers arrive on the uninhabited Scottish island of Taransa.
The group of 36 volunteers were tasked with spending a year on the island, in the hope they could build a sustainable community.
As well as battling gruelling weather conditions, the group were hit by a nasty flu outbreak during their time on the island.
Speaking about his time on the show, Ben told The Telegraph in January: ‘No one could understand why I’d be giving up a good job and central London, and giving up all my friends, for a year.
‘It changed my life, it is where I became an environmentalist. I believe we should be very careful about not wasting anything.’
2009 – Bitten by a parasite
Mere weeks before his trek to the South Pole, Ben contracted the flesh-eating bug Leishmaniasis after being bitten by a sand fly in Peru (pictured during treatment)
While Ben began planning his huge trek to Antarctica with pal James Cracknell, he was hit by an unexpected health scare, after being unknowingly bitten by a sand fly while filming Extreme Dreams for the BBC in the jungles of Peru.
This bite turned into the flesh-eating bug Leishmaniasis, which affects around two million people every year, and Ben previously shared that he contracted pneumonia and lost several kilos of weight during the gruelling treatment.
He told The Mail On Sunday in 2009: ‘Even though I’m generally chilled about things, I started to panic.
‘I’m not a vain guy, but the thought of possible permanent facial disfigurement was very scary. I work in TV; what prospects would I have with half a face?
‘I didn’t know how quickly it might happen – in a day, or a week? I’d also heard that the treatment was archaic and notoriously unpleasant.
‘When the doctor showed me a bottle of the toxic medicine I’d have to have pumped into me, it scarily had the word Poison written in big red letters on the side, with a skull and crossbones.’
While Ben completed his course of treatment, the lesion on his arm re-opened during his Arctic trek, and he required another round when he returned to the UK.
2009 – His Arctic trek
Ben overcame the skin-eating disease that nearly forced him to cancel his trek to the South Pole, but the adventure itself wasn’t easy (pictured recreating a historic trek for a 2023 series)
Surviving on just four hours of sleep a night, Ben overcame frostbite and hypothermia during the expedition
Ben overcame the skin-eating disease that nearly forced him to cancel his trek to the South Pole, but the adventure itself was far from easy.
Surviving on just four hours of sleep a night, Ben overcame frostbite and hypothermia during the expedition.
He previously told The Telegraph: ‘It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We had two weeks to acclimatise but you forget about how dangerous Antarctica can be.
‘It started with frostbite, then I burnt my lips, got blisters on my feet and had a bit of hypothermia. It all just starts to get on top of you. There were many days when I thought we were not going to finish the race.’
2013 – Ben’s ‘psychotic episode’
In 2020 Ben revealed that he suffered a ‘psychotic episode’ and even tried to ‘kill himself’ after his drink was spiked at a rural pub in The Cotswolds in 2013
While Ben has travelled to some of the world’s most hostile environments, it was much closer to home he suffered one of his biggest brushes with death.
In 2020 he revealed that he suffered a ‘psychotic episode’ and even tried to ‘kill himself’ after his drink was spiked at a rural pub in The Cotswolds in 2013.
Warning others of the dangers of having one’s drink spiked, he also tried to combat the stigma faced by victims of similar incidents as he said the ‘Twitter pile on’ he was subjected to at the time made him feel further victimised.
In a lengthy caption, he said: ‘Several years ago, in 2013 to be precise, my drink was spiked with an unknown substance that resulted in a psychotic episode that saw me hospitalised.
‘It was one of the scariest experiences of my life but the response was even more disappointing…
‘Then talking about the dangers of drinks being spiked, he went on: ‘The impact of drink spiking cannot be underestimated.
‘The unknown drug caused a psychotic episode during which I tried to kill my self. I spent weeks undergoing psychological and medical testing to ensure it wasn’t self induced by illness.
‘Multiple doctors concluded that it was indeed an external drug that had caused the psychosis and yet there was no recrimination, just suspicion as to why and how I had been spiked.’
2015 – Daredevil fishing in the Mekong River
While travelling down the Mekong River in Laos, Ben shared that he nearly drowned while trying to recreate the perils faced by fisherman checking their traps
For one of his many travel series, Ben previously journeyed to the Mekong River, which runs from Tibet through China, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
Appearing on the competition series Big Fish, Ben joined a local fisherman checking whether his traps on the fast-moving waters were successful, putting him at serious risk of drowning.
He told The Radio Times: ‘One wrong move and I would have been swept into the fury of water downstream. ,
‘I dived and could feel myself jostled by the swirling currents; the weight of the river dragged at my legs as I grabbed for one of the branches and clambered to safety.’
2018 – Climbing Mount Everest
Never one to shy away from an adventure, in 2018, Ben climbed the summit of Mount Everest , in the memory of his stillborn son Willem
The trip was not without problems. He had to scale the final 2,700ft, known as the ‘death zone’, alone after his climbing partner, Victoria Pendleton, was forced to abandon the challenge
Never one to shy away from an adventure, in 2018, Ben climbed the summit of Mount Everest, in the memory of his stillborn son Willem.
‘At 7.30am on the 16th April, after more than five weeks of acclimatising and training on Mount Everest, I finally realised a childhood dream when I successfully summited the 8848m mountain,’ the TV star said, as he shared a photo of himself on top of the world’s highest peak.
The trip was not without problems. He had to scale the final 2,700ft, known as the ‘death zone’, alone after his climbing partner, Victoria Pendleton, was forced to abandon the challenge.
The Olympic cyclist began suffering from the effects of hypoxia – oxygen deficiency – at Camp 2, 6,400 metres above sea level, and required additional oxygen to alleviate her symptoms.
2023 – Bitten by a snake
While staying with the Mbendjele people in The Congo for a series in 2023, Ben revealed that he was accidentally bitten by a snake after mistaking it for a fish
While staying with the Mbendjele people in The Congo for a series in 2023, Ben revealed that he was accidentally bitten by a snake after mistaking it for a fish.
Recalling the experience on The One Show, he said: ‘The fish that they catch are tiny. They are like an inch long.
‘I mistook a very small snake for one of the fish and they all warned me that if I had been bitten that would have been it. You know, it was a deadly snake.’
2024 – Horror car scare
In April 2024, Ben shared that he’d suffered yet another close call after his ‘life flashed before his eyes’ when he was nearly hit by a delivery fan outside his home in Oxfordshire
The TV adventurer said it was ‘ironic’ it had not happened during one of his trips to the jungle or desert, before claiming his two children had also nearly come close to being injured
In April 2024, Ben shared that he’d suffered yet another close call after his ‘life flashed before his eyes’ when he was nearly hit by a delivery fan outside his home in Oxfordshire.
The TV adventurer said it was ‘ironic’ it had not happened during one of his trips to the jungle or desert, before claiming his two children had also nearly come close to the injury.
Recalling the near death experience, he wrote on Instagram: ‘I nearly died yesterday. Not on Everest or in some remote jungle. Not on an Ocean or in a desert, but on a small single track lane outside my home in rural Oxfordshire.
‘Given the things I have done and the risks I have taken, it feels a little ironic that my own near death experience should happen so close to home. Let me explain…
‘I was running along the road with my dog at my side. I don’t run along the road because I want to run on the road but most land is private. I run along the road because it is the only way to reach the fewer and fewer paths and bridleways.
‘A delivery driver driving at the perfectly legal, but obviously dangerous 60mph, careered around one of the many blind bends, threw on its breaks and skidded to a halt just a few feet from me and my dog.
‘My life flashed before my eyes. Just as it had done when my boat capsized on the Atlantic Ocean and when my oxygen bottle exploded on Everest, but this was on a dog walk outside my home.’
Ben described the village, home to several hundred people, as ‘idyllic with children, dogs, horses, farmers and a thriving social community’.
The presenter, who has six dogs and is married to wife Marna, has started a petition to reduce the current 60mph speed limit to 20mph before a fatality occurs after his two children son Ludo, 15, and 13-year-old daughter Iona also had near misses on separate occasions.
He said: ‘While my daughter rides her pony along the road because it is the only way to reach the fewer and fewer bridleways, delivery drivers race at the legal 60mph around blind bends to meet home delivery time targets.
‘While my son cycles on his bike with the dogs, day visitors, blindly following sat nav and the 60mph speed limit career along the single track pavement, sorry road.
‘The only way I can reach the limited footpaths is on the same single track road that I must share with 60mph delivery drivers.
‘I love living here in this rural idyllic, but I don’t want to die because our local council doesn’t see fit to implement a 20mph limit for a community that relies on the road as our pavement too.
‘We have imposed the 20mph in places which already have pavements. I am a risk taker, so I don’t say this lightly. Someone is going to get killed in our village. Both of my children have had near encounters with speeding traffic.
He added: ‘We are not alone. There are countless other small villages out there who also live with 60mph speed limits through the heart of their community. It is common sense. Our local councillor has tried to no avail. Please help us, before we lose someone.’
