The 1979 Infection That Nearly Killed Keith Richards

It wasn’t a drug overdose or a fall from a coconut tree—it was a dirty needle that almost took Keith Richards out in 1979. He developed a severe staphylococcal infection that turned into septicemia, a full-on blood infection. Doctors told him his red blood cells had been destroyed, and he needed emergency blood transfusions to survive.

He spent several weeks in a London hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness. When he woke up, the Rolling Stones were already preparing for a tour without him. The experience scared him enough to quit heroin cold turkey—though he never claimed to go clean entirely. He switched to other substances, but the needle was done. That hospital stay was the turning point that kept him alive long enough to become the immortal riff machine we know today.