Darius Danesh had two brushes with death before his passing at age 41.
Pop Idol star Darius was found dead in his apartment in Rochester, Minnesota on Thursday August 11. His cause of death is unknown.
However, the singer made the headlines in 2010 when he revealed he was just "three millimetres from death" after being involved in a car crash.
The West End star, who's ex-wife has paid tribute following his death, was a passenger in a Porsche when it hit a wall at 70mph after skidding in oil during a "lads driving holiday" in Spain.
Darius broke his neck in the accident and was offered an operation, which he turned down over fears it would damage his singing voice.
Speaking to Hello! At the time, Darius recalled how a nurse told him: "Three millimetres this way, you no walk; three millimetres that way, you're dead."
He added: "It was like how you'd talk to a baby, but I knew what she was trying to say – I was the luckiest man alive."
Darius, whose hit Colourblind has soared in the charts following his death, added of the accident: "Because of the haze, we didn't see that there was a diesel spill on the road. Before we could work out what was going on, it was already too late."
He added how the car "careered out control on a bed" and crashed into a wall and said: "After getting out of the car, I remember a sharp pain in my neck. The adrenaline carried me for 30 seconds or so, and then I collapsed."
Darius' "trauma compression injury" was similar to that of Superman actor Christopher Reeve's, which left him paralysed.
Then in 2015, Darius slipped into a coma after contracting meningitis when he drank water from the Thames river.
Darius had been filming a promotional clip for his charity Fresh20 Water filter, which is said to remove 99.9 per cent of all known "water-borne pathogens, bacteria and viruses".
He drank water next to a Thames sewage outlet in his bottle, but it didn't have a filter attached.
The Pop Idol star then contracted a virus which then weakened his immune system and resulted in him later contracting meningitis and cerebral oedema, which is a swelling of the brain.
Speaking to the Daily Record after the ordeal, Darius said: "I drank the water for the video and raised the funds but, when I went to Glasgow to see my mum for her birthday, I collapsed.
"It turned out I had a cerebral oedema where your brain swells bigger than your skull. Dad saved my life. He got me to hospital. They diagnosed it quickly."
Darius' mum Avril, who had been undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy for breast cancer when her son collapsed in 2015, stayed at her son's bedside.
He recalled: "As I came out of the coma, I remember my mum sitting beside the bed.
"It felt upside down and wrong because my mum was going through cancer treatment.
"Yet she was next to me with tears in her eyes telling my brother that they almost lost me."
