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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Connie Rusk

Harry and Sandra Redknapp's brushes with death - fatal crash, sepsis and cancer scares

Harry and Sandra Redknapp call themselves the "cat with nine lives" after several brushes with death during their 55-year marriage.

From Harry's fatal car crash in Rome to Sandra, 75, battling life-threatening sepsis twice, the couple have had terrifying health scares over the last half a century which has left them feeling "very lucky to be alive".

Writing in their new memoir, When Harry Met Sandra, the pair detail their scariest times of their life and how their love for one another helped them get through their toughest moments.

Fatal crash

Back in 1990, former West Ham manager Harry, also 75, was told by doctors he was "lucky to be alive" after a horrific 90mph crash that killed his best friend Brian Tiler and three Italian teenagers.

The I'm A Celebrity star was travelling back from watching Italy's win against Republic of Ireland when his "minibus catapulted into the air and landed upside down" after being struck at 90mph by a Volkswagen Golf.

Back in 1990, former West Ham manager Harry, also 75, was told by doctors he was "lucky to be alive" (ITV)

"Their car was a wreck, smashed to pieces, and our minibus was like a scrunched-up crisp packet. I was covered in petrol, panicking that I was about to be blown up in the wreckage," he says of the crash in Rome.

"I was told I was lying on the road on my back, no doubt in shock. The emergency services arrived and thought I was a goner, so they put a blanket over my head."

Harry woke up in hospital suffering from multiple injuries - a fractured skull, broken bones and a "horrible" cut on his leg.

As he was delivered the news Brian had not survived the crash, the football manager recalls feeling waves of sickness and guilt as his best friend had joked in the minibus: "I've nicked your seat".

Harry recalls how his son Jamie fainted at the sight of him wrapped in bandages and covered in bruises as his boys flew over to Rome, while a worried Sandra stayed at home.

After being discharged from hospital, Harry made his way home to his beloved wife feeling "very, very lucky I'm alive".

Cancer scares

Years earlier Sandra had faced her own health battle (Internet Unknown)

Meanwhile, years earlier Sandra had faced her own health battle at a time when the family had been left penniless after being scammed by a conman football club owner in America.

Days before Christmas, the mother-of-two received a phone call from worried doctors that she needed surgery on Valentine's Day after finding cysts in her ovary.

But months later she was told she needed a hysterectomy after doctors discovered she had ovarian cancer when the cysts were removed.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was the first time I was hearing the C-word. My mouth was wide opened... within weeks, I was back at the hospital, but this time having everything removed", she says.

Sandra was placed on Hormone Replacement Therapy for the next 15 years, but felt grateful the cancer was spotted by medical professionals in the early stages.

Harry, too, had his own cancer scare in 2017 - doctors found a tumour in his bladder and told them it needed to removed urgently.

"I feared the worst. I wanted it out of me", he says.

After surgery doctors delivered the news the tumour was benign, with no sign of cancer and that Harry would need to have a check-up every three months .

"Looking back, it was a frightening time. I really thought the tumour would kill me," he says.

Run over

Harry says one of the worst days of his life was when he accidentally ran over his beloved wife Sandra back in 2016.

The couple had headed out for a quiet day shopping in Westbourne, with Harry parking up the car and calling out to Sandra to watch out for traffic as she left their 4 x 4 to head to the shops.

Before she knew it, Harry had accidentally reversed into her and trapped her foot under the wheel.

"I felt this huge pressure on my foot and I was suddenly being dragged down," Sandra says.

Harry says one of the worst days of his life was when he accidentally ran over his beloved wife Sandra (PA)

'Harry!!' I screamed. I started banging on the car. 'Harry!!' He had reversed over my ankle. I fell into the road as a bus was coming."

Meanwhile, from the driver's seat a horrified Harry heard Sandra's piercing scream and thought for a "moment in time" she was no longer with him.

"I thought another car had hit her. I heard her scream, but I didn’t realise it was me who’d knocked her down. I really thought for a moment in time that I had lost her. She was lying in absolute agony on the floor," he says.

"I looked down in horror at her foot, which looked like it had been sliced like a piece of bacon. There was blood everywhere."

Sandra was stretchered off in an ambulance as their granddaughter Molly witnessed the scene from a bus passing by.

Sandra needed surgery on her foot but says she never blamed Harry for the accident as he was so distraught with himself.

Life-threatening sepsis

Harry "nearly pulled out" of I'm A Celebrity after Sandra fell ill with life-threatening sepsis (James Gourley/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Harry "nearly pulled out" of I'm A Celebrity after Sandra fell ill with life-threatening sepsis for the second time in 2018.

Having experienced it a year prior, the former hairdresser recalls her horror as her body began to shake all over as a kidney infection led to her developing sepsis.

But the mother-of-two didn't want a "fuss over nothing" and thinking she didn't want to go all the way hospital.

She says on reflection if it wasn't for her friend Jane insisting she goes to A and E, she would be dead.

"The reality is, had I not gone to the hospital that day, I would have been in desperate trouble. Jane calling the ambulance and getting me there saved my life. She saved my life," says Sandra.

When Harry Met Sandra is out on Thursday (September 29), £20, published by Mirror Books

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