Wilkinson almost died – choking on a pickle

Joe Wilkinson has revealed that he almost choked to death on a pickled beetroot.

It was only the actions of a passing jogger that  save him after the vegetable got lodged in the comedian’s throat.

The 46-year-old  started choking when he ate a piece of beetroot while cooking.

‘Genuinely, I nearly died,’ he told Brett Goldstein on his Films To Be Buried With podcast. ‘I couldn’t breathe.

‘I ran out into the garden pointing at my throat, my other half was panicking. She’s not very big and she’s trying to Heimlich manoeuvre me, but she wasn’t strong enough.

‘So I ran - I couldn’t breathe at all - through the house into the road. A jogger ran past, a big guy, and I was pointing at my throat going mad. He was going, "I don’t know what to do."

‘And he sort of gave it a go at the Heimlich manoeuvre. Luckily a bit of beetroot shot out of my mouth to the floor.

‘I panted for a bite and then I went, "Oh sorry about that… we’ve ballsed up the social distancing, haven’t we?"

Published: 26 Jun 2021