Dawn French has recalled how she and Jennifer Saunders narrowly escaped death after they were poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak in Spain.
The 66-year-old opened up about the terrifying incident in her memoir, The T**t Files, and explained that a faulty boiler in their villa was to blame for the near-death experience.
French recalled that the comedy duo, known as French and Saunders, were filming The Comic Strip Presents when things quickly took a wrong turn after their 6am wake-up call.
The TV star said she instantly knew something was terribly wrong after waking up “groggy and confused” and quickly called out to her pal before crawling to safety.
In an excerpt obtained by The Mirror, French writes: “We made a film for The Comic Strip called A Fistful of Travellers’ Cheques in 1984. We were sharing a villa with two bedrooms – Fatty (Dawn’s nickname for Jennifer) and her then-boyfriend in one room and me in the other.
"About five days in, we were called to set. A car would pick us up at 6am and it was my job to be the alarm. I duly woke up and, in an effort not to fall back to sleep, I attempted to sit up. What happened next was very odd.
The Vicar of Dibley star said she felt “as if I’d been thwacked in the face with a frying pan in a Tom and Jerry cartoon".
Despite her confusion, she managed to “roll on to the floor” before crawling towards the door “and shouted to Jennifer” in the other room.
She added: “She mumbled something and then I heard a thud. None of us could stand up, so we crawled outside.”
French revealed that they later learned “we were being poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak from a faulty boiler.”
Reflecting on the ordeal, the actress credited the early wake-up call for saving their lives, insisting that if they hadn’t woken up then, “the gas would’ve finished us off.”
Carbon monoxide cannot be seen, tasted or smelt, and its symptoms such as headaches, nausea and dizziness can easily be confused with flu.
CO poisoning kills 40 people a year in England and Wales and a further 4,000 are hospitalised, according to the Health and Safety Executive.
