SKIRMISHER

After being told he would die within a year, 62-year-old John Brandrick quit his job, stopped paying his mortgage, gave away most of his possessions, and embarked on months of unprecedented leisure to piss away his money.

Now broke, the doctors are telling him, “Sorry, but there’s been a mistake. You’re not going to die, after all.”

In another context, that would have been good news. But for Brandrick, that’s like pissing in his supposedly last drink. So he’s asking for compensation for this absurd error.

Brandrick was left with little more than the black suit, white shirt and red tie that he had planned to be buried in when it emerged a year later that his suspected “tumor” was no more than a non-life threatening inflammation of the pancreas.

“When they tell you you’ve got a limited time and everything, you do enjoy life,” Brandrick, from Cornwall in the west of England, told Sky television.

“I’m really pleased that I’ve got a second chance in life… but if you haven’t got no money after all this, which is my fault — I spent it all — they should pay something back.”

If he can’t get compensation, he is considering selling his house or suing the hospital that diagnosed him.

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