They cut him down after fifteen minutes. He was still breathing. John Smith had been hanged at Tyburn in 1705 for burglary. The drop wasn’t long enough to break his neck. He hung there conscious, slowly strangling, for fifteen minutes while the crowd watched. Then a reprieve arrived. They cut him down. He was carried to a nearby house and bled. He recovered fully. When asked what it felt like to hang, he said there was extreme pain, then a great blaze of light, then nothing. Then he woke up. He lived for decades afterwards. People called him Half-Hanged Smith for the rest of his life.
Interesting Fact Smith was pardoned on condition he leave England. He didn’t. He was convicted of burglary again three years later. He survived that too.