5 When there is one column per event type

The gather_() function from the tidyr package can be used to change data from the wide to long format. When each event type has its only column with the exact time, the function only needs to be run once

library(tidyr)
data_time_points <- wide_example[,c('ID','AE','SAE','Death.date')]
points_long <- gather_(data=data_time_points,"point", "time", 
                       gather_cols=c('AE','SAE','Death.date'),na.rm=T)
knitr::kable(points_long,align='c',row.names = F)

ID	point	time
ID:001	AE	5.0
ID:002	AE	1.0
ID:001	SAE	5.5
ID:003	SAE	2.0
ID:001	Death.date	6.0
ID:003	Death.date	7.0

The points can now be added to the plot

plot+ swimmer_points(df=points_long,id='ID',name_shape = 'point',size=8)