Mark Hamill and Margaret Atwood weigh in on Stephen King still being alive

There are so many reasons why we love Stephen King, from his ability to craft wild, scary stories that stay with us forever to his political opinions and his praise for Baby Reindeer. We’re also super grateful he survived after experiencing a brutal car accident in the late ’90s, and apparently so are some of his biggest fans.

Dave Musson, who wrote The Ultimate Stephen King Quiz Book, shared a fantastic song on X (formally Twitter) with references to King’s books in honor of the author surviving a van hitting him 25 years ago. King reposted it and wrote, “I’m also glad I didn’t die.”

This would be funny enough, but then The Best Canadian Author Ever, Margaret Atwood — who brought us the terrifying-because-it’s-so-realistic world of The Handmaid’s Tale — responded. She made a joke about it being possible that King isn’t really still alive, once again proving her famous sense of humor.

And that would be enough for us, too, but then Star Wars legend Mark Hamill weighed in. He spoke for all of us superfans when he responded, “We ALL are” regarding the happiness of King’s presence still on this earth.

In the video, which already has 1.1 million views, Dave Musson mentioned that King has been “telling tales and spreading fear” since June 19th, 1999, which was the date of the accident. He mentions the 2013 sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, which did well on Netflix U.K.

If you’ve read King’s brilliant writing bible, On Writing, you know his 1999 injury was worse than anyone could have imagined. The author was going for a walk when a deluded driver named Bryan Smith swerved off the road and hit King with his van. King was taken to two hospitals and his leg was in danger of being amputated, but thankfully that didn’t happen. After that, King began abusing OxyContin, which he opened up about in a 2013 interview with NPR. The author penned Dreamcatcher during his recovery, which isn’t a fan-favorite book, but we feel so bad about his accident so we understand.

Almost dying in a horrible accident would have a huge impact on anyone, and King has reflected on it frequently since it happened. When he responded to Dave Musson’s post, that wasn’t the first time he talked about being happy to be alive. On June 19th, 2019, King posted on X (then Twitter), “Every day is a gift.”

The beloved author also came close to losing his life a second time when he came down with pneumonia in 2003. As he explained in a video for Lisey’s Story, the AppleTV+ adaptation of his book that he also wrote, he said, “When I came home from the hospital, my wife had cleaned out my study and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve died, I’m a ghost.’ The idea for Lisey’s Story came from that.”

Even when describing the accident in an interview with NPR in 2010, Stephen King showed us his brilliant knack for storytelling. He said he found it difficult to avoid referring to Smith as “a Faulknerian stereotype” and said, “He was like a character in a Stephen King book, but only because he seemed like a real Maine type to me.”