Actor Mel Brooks has credited his older brother with saving his life after he was run over by a limousine in his youth.

The Blazing Saddles star was skating in the street near his home in Brooklyn, New York when he was struck by a car.

Recalling the incident in a column for New York Magazine, he writes, "I'm doing an eagle turn. I'm at the corner of Hooper Street. I start arms extended, arms akimbo, all extended, out as much as I can go in a kind of circle - and bang! I'm hit by a limousine, knocked down, and the wheel goes over me. I'm hit by a car. Luckily, it was an old-fashioned Ford. I said, 'Good-bye cruel world.'"

Brooks was taken to the hospital for testing, and he continues, "(My brother) Irving got me from under the car, cradled me in his arms, and took me to Kulick's Drugstore... There was a crowd that gathered, he kind of had to push his way through with me - skates still on!

"I heard him say, 'Move, you son of a b**ch.' I had never heard him curse in my life... And I was like, 'Wow! This must be important! Irving is cursing!'

"I went to St. Catherine's Hospital and a nun with a big heavy wooden cross swinging over me - it was pretty scary - said, 'You have to urinate in this bottle.' And I said, 'What do you mean?' She said, 'You have to make pee-pee.' And I said, 'Okay, I'll try.' She gave me the bottle and I said, 'Well, I can't.' And she said, 'If you can't, we have to put a tube in your penis.' I peed like the Amazon River."