Emilia Clarke has opened up about how paramedics kept her calm in the back of an ambulance following two aneurysms that left part of her brain dead.
Earlier this year, Emilia shared her life-threatening experience in an essay for the New Yorker, revealing that she had been rushed into hospital after a brain aneurysm in 2011 before suffering another one two years later.
Emilia was diagnosed with a subarachnoid haemorrhage, which is a stroke that a third of patients can die from. "I'd never experienced fear like that — a sense of doom closing in," she wrote. "I could see my life ahead, and it wasn't worth living."
Emilia went as far as to reveal that she'd actually asked medical staff to "let me die" in the hospital after, writing that in her worst moments she "wanted to pull the plug".
"I am an actor; I need to remember my lines. Now I couldn't recall my name," Emilia said. "In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job — my entire dream of what my life would be — centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost."
However, despite the severity of the aneurysms, Emilia was back at work — filming for the second season of Game of Thrones — six weeks later.
Emilia revealed that she only told the show's bosses as she didn't want her condition to be the "subject of public discussion and dissection".
She added: "Season two would be my worst. I didn’t know what Daenerys was doing. If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die."
Now, in a candid interview with People, Emilia revealed that the kindness of the paramedics, as well as the family around her, were responsible for lifting her spirits in her darkest hour.
In fact, Emilia said that the paramedics were so "unbelievable" at their job that they managed to keep her calm in the ambulance by making her laugh.
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Emilia said of the ambulance journey: "They'd given me drugs so I was in less pain, wrapped me up like a tortilla and made me laugh the whole way to the hospital."
She added: "There I was, bleeding in the brain, and there we were in this ambulance having an absolute giggle. They were so gracious."
Emilia also credited her mum for being a pillar of strength while she recovered, recalling times in the hospital when she'd pretend to understand what Emilia was saying.
"I had aphasia [loss of speech], and [my mum] looked at me and went, 'Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,'" Emilia said. "She made me believe she understood exactly what I was saying. It was genuinely her greatest moment."
Emilia went on to thank the nurses who helped her, calling them "so kind" and "the unsung heroes".
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"It's why I became ambassador to the Royal College of Nursing in 2018," she said. "Nurses are the unsung heroes; they're at people's most frightening moments."
After her experiences, Emilia started a charity called SameYou, which aims to "raise funds and help increase neurorehabilitation access after brain injury and stroke".
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Within two weeks, Game of Thrones fans had raised more than £100,000.
