“I didn’t see the white light or anything like that,” the 84-year-old actor said of his brush with death. “There’s nothing there.”

Al Pacino revealed on a podcast over the weekend that he almost died during a bout with Covid-19 — a near-death experience that left him pondering his mortality.

Pacino, 84, was plugging his memoir, “Sonny Boy.” on The New York Times’ podcast “The Interview” when he recounted how in 2020 he fell sick at his home from Covid and the situation quickly became dicey.

Pacino said that he had a fever and was dehydrated with a faint pulse and that he lost consciousness.

  • @Iamgoatcheese
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    711 hours ago

    My dad went into cardiac arrest for 15 min. He said he saw nothing, too.

  • Flying Squid
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    3116 hours ago

    He almost died. It was near-death. Even he said so. But that wasn’t good enough for NBC News. They had to say he “briefly died.”

    He didn’t. You don’t come back from death.

    • @[email protected]
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      812 hours ago

      You don’t come back from death.

      If you’ve seen Narcan work, you’d change your mind.

      And, very rarely, hospital trauma patients have been brought back from what’s defined as death, to life. But the timing, the on-hand staff and equipment has to be varied, be many, and be relevant. And also a lotta luck.

      • Flying Squid
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        212 hours ago

        Defined as death by whom? What are their criteria for this definition?

        • @[email protected]
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          211 hours ago

          If your whole body goes through a chipper, is there a moment where all or most of your cells are still alive?

          • Flying Squid
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            311 hours ago

            Are you defining death as ‘none of your cells are alive?’

            I suppose some people would consider Henrietta Lacks to be alive, but I wouldn’t.

            Otherwise, I don’t understand the point of your question. It’s neither a definition nor a list of criteria. But I would not be surprised if some human cells lived for a while after going through a wood chipper.

    • @CatZoomies
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      1715 hours ago

      You don’t come back from death? Oh yeah?! Then explain Pokémon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back!

      Mew and Mewtwo are fighting and Ash jumps in between them because he doesn’t want them to fight. They kill him and bro falls to the ground and turns to stone. Then Pikachu tries to wake him up with slaps and thunder shocks, but fails to wake him up as Pikachu breaks out into tears. All the other Pokémon witnessing this start crying over Ash’s courageous sacrifice and Pikachu’s loss, that their tears fly away or whatever, and those tears flow into Ash’s body. He then turns back to flesh and he’s like, “Yo I’m alive and that hurt, but I’m alright.”

      • @Preciseid
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        215 hours ago

        It’s a children cartoon movie

        • @CatZoomies
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          915 hours ago

          Very good, sir. This explanation seems air tight to me.

      • Flying Squid
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        215 hours ago

        As an official Old™, you lost me at Pokemon.

        • @[email protected]
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          413 hours ago

          How dare you

          I’m old and I fucking love Pokémon

          I will always love Pokémon

          I will be buried with a Raichu

          • Flying Squid
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            413 hours ago

            Hey, my wife is way into YA books. You do you, friend. It all confuses me.

          • Flying Squid
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            313 hours ago

            Which movie, Pokemon? I was in my 20s and not really interested in kids movies.

        • @CatZoomies
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          315 hours ago

          Ha, I’m also a member of the official Old myself! Pokémon was my childhood when it came out 30 years ago, so I’m a more junior member than you

  • @thebigslime
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    211 hours ago

    Doesn’t this dude have a toddler or kindergartener at 84?

  • Drusas
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    7924 hours ago

    If people like him had shared these sort of stories more in the early days, it might have helped more Americans to take it seriously.

    • Ghostalmedia
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      1117 hours ago

      People straight up knew people their age that died, and STILL didn’t get vaccinated.

      • @monkeyslikebananas2
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        816 hours ago

        It is hilarious because people were “really dying” of “other things” when the virus destroyed kidneys they “really died of kidney failure.” When it ravaged and stopped the heart it was really “heart disease.” Lungs, pneumonia. But definitely not the virus.

        People are fucking stupid and we deserve whatever happens to us.

        • TipRing
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          212 hours ago

          People who died of COVID usually didn’t die with COVID. People who are looking for a reason to blame anything but the virus for deaths point at that distinction as though it is somehow meaningful.

    • @InverseParallax
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      5023 hours ago

      Wouldn’t have mattered.

      People wanted to believe what they wanted to believe, religion isn’t restricted to the organized ones, we have impromptu cults everywhere as well.

    • MudMan
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      2322 hours ago

      Plenty of them did. That ship sailed the moment the issue got politicized. As with everything else, once it’s about taking sides in the current environment, no amount of reality will make a dent.

  • @jordanlund
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    3221 hours ago

    Back in January, in the hospital, my heart stopped for 8 seconds. I was asleep, I had no idea. I woke up and was fiddling on my phone, nurse comes in:

    “Were you asleep about an hour ago?”

    “Yeah, why?”

    “Your heart stopped for 8 seconds.”

    “Um… thank you? I don’t know how to respond to that…”

    I have a heart monitor connected to my phone now, continuously monitoring. It’s stopped a few more times since then, 4 seconds here, 5 seconds there. Doc says not to worry about it, no cause for a pacemaker yet.

    • @leauxhigh
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      1115 hours ago

      So, like a whole hour goes by before they check on a person who’s heart stopped? That would be in my review for said, “hospital”.

      • @jordanlund
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        13 hours ago

        In fairness, it did re-start on it’s own before they could do anything.

        But that was my question…

        “None of the monitors went off… well, I don’t THINK they went off…”

        “Oh, yeah, they went off at the nurses station…”

        Apparently “pauses” like that aren’t uncommon for folks who just had their 2nd heart attack. Since then I’ve had shorter ones in the 4-5 second range. All when I’ve been asleep.

        Doc says it’s not concerning unless it happens when I’m awake and the only thing I’ve had like that is either skipped beats or extra beats, which I gotta say, feels super fucking weird. I have passed out or nearly passed out a couple of times just trying to walk down a hallway.

        All that being said, yeah, we go out of our way to avoid that hospital now.

      • @jordanlund
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        421 hours ago

        Well, that’s what the implant is for. Battery’s good for 3-4 years.

  • @Bonesince1997
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    4124 hours ago

    Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

    • @NABDad
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      116 hours ago

      You win.

  • @[email protected]
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    -2223 hours ago

    “Look. I know your loved ones died… And that’s tragic. But listen about how hard it was for me to suffer through in the comfort of my own home surrounded by some of the best medical staff money could buy.”

    • @NABDad
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      616 hours ago

      Who took a shit in your cornflakes?

      Pacino is allowed to discuss his experiences, particularly since so many people are interested. It’s not like he broke into your house and forced you to listen. Someone asked him to talk, someone wrote about it, and we read it.