Greyson, a psychiatrist, was urgently needed in the ER to treat a college student who had overdosed. With no time to change his dirty tie, he grabbed a white lab coat and buttoned it up to hide the stain.
In the ER, he found the student unconscious on a gurney, her breathing slow but regular. He called her name — “Holly” — and tried to rouse her. But she didn’t stir.
*****
I had one when I was 14, on April 23rd, 1973. I'd been in a pretty serious motorcycle accident and had a 10% chance of living when they scraped my ass off the highway.
No, I didn't see 'the light' or dead relatives or anything like that, but I did leave my body and was able to watch the ambulance crew work on me and the German Polizei question witnesses. When they loaded me into the ambulance, I was sucked into my body. Whole thing from start to finish? A couple minutes.
Did it teach me that life was worth living like the headline to this post says? Fuck no. All it did was make me realize that when it's your time, it's your time and there's not a shittin' thing you can do about it so you might as well do all the crap you wanted to do before God pulls your Immortality Card. That in itself almost got me Xed out a few more times in my life.
now Angel and all of us know why you have no ass.
ReplyDeleteRE: you might as well do all the crap you wanted to do
ReplyDeleteI would say that dovetails with the overly dramatic "made life worth living" (that or I'm misreading the headline). Too many people should be praying "if I should wake before I die". They go through the daily grind without actually doing anything lasting or anything they want to do.
There are several friends that I always say "have fun" because all they do is mop the floor and take out the trash. They never do anything that they want to do because there's always something else that "has" to be done (like wash the dishes). Someday they'll wake up, realize that they're 80 and their health won't let them go kayaking, motorcycle riding, sky-diving, or skinny dipping in the ocean.
Yeah, sure. There are things in life that are boring that you have to do as an adult. Pay your bills, mow your lawn, don't piss of Old Misses Grady, but that should not be the only thing you do.
Nearly dying can be a wake up call saying "go live life".
I have a brother Tim, who had downs syndrome. When I was 10, Tim was 16. We were at Lake Lanier, by the dam - deep water.
ReplyDeleteAfter lunch Tim got on a float without his life jacket. Ultimately he fell off and floundered - I ran down the hill, jumped in and swam hard - until I remembered drowning rules - approach from behind, don't let them grab you... I stop, look up only to see I'm right next to him.
He lurched and I got 1 good gulp of air before he pushed me under.
I fought like hell, pushing away, trying to break the surface. Once, twice but he got back on me. Air running out, lungs starting to hurt.
Again I have a moment of clarity = swim down and away... lungs are BURNING - I see which way he is facing - the beach - and I swim down and the other way.
I get within inches of the surface and boom, Tim found me - I'm shoved back down and he is standing on my shoulders.
That is when I know... I have zero energy, completely spent and my lungs - the pain is excruciating.
I think to myself "this is how you're going to die, you have to breathe"...
And I did. I opened my mouth and took in a big gulp of water. There is no other option.
I blacked out immediately.
Then I woke up on the beach, puking up water. Tim was about 10 ft away, also on the beach safe.
I asked my family - what happened? They said I brought Tim back to the beach...
I didn't see a light or hear angles or God - but I know He was there and only by His grace, we lived.
No doubt in my mind and in fact, had God reaffirmed, His presence - again.
Have a blessed day - because every day is blessed.
I had a pretty long NDE that I can share. I was about 26. I can't swim and some asshole "friends" who didn't know that threw me in the deep end. I had an NDE from drowning. My "friends" were laughing at my struggling..thinking I was just being goofy. I wasn't. I gulped a bunch of swimming pool chlorinated water; I had no choice because the pain was excruciating. That was about the same time I realized I was going to die. I could feel my body shutting down and about that time...POP! I was out of my body hovering over the scene, and realized I could read the emotions of all the people gathered there at the municipal pool. All I needed do was focus on a person and I could read emotion, then mental images. That was amazing, but a little boring considering my "new" environment, so I looked up and was instantly out in space, just floating. As I thought about what was on the other side of the Moon and should I investigate...I was piloted back down to Earth, but in that one instant, I had answers to all my deepest questions. It was like being online with God, but just for a second. When I was reeled back into my body all the pain rushed back as the lifeguards started giving me CPR. They took me to the local clinic, but although my lungs were still on fire and I could barely breathe, I demanded they release me and I drove about 50 miles back home. BTW all that "knowledge" I encountered faded out pretty quickly. But I still have some empath abilities; I can make my wife's headaches and muscle aches go away with what I call a "focused touch". And I have no fear or death because when we die we continue on in our original form. Aliens supposedly call us "containers" and some think that means our "meat suit" body is a "container" for the soul, which separates from the body when it dies. But the "you" that you recognize as the little voice in your head as being "you", continues to live and can't be "killed".
DeleteNderf.org has a lot of stories like this.
ReplyDeleteYour experience also proves that only the good die young.
ReplyDeleteWell now. If my life flashes before my eyes when I kick off, I hope its the parts with the beautiful women I have known. You know, the stuff worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteDr. Gary Habermas from Liberty University does peer reviewed research in this area. He has some interesting evidence that this thing is a real phenomenon. Dr. Habermas makes a clear case and uses it to open the door for an afterlife discussion with skeptics who believe that there is nothing after death.
ReplyDelete"...but I did leave my body and was able to watch the ambulance crew work on me and the German Polizei question witnesses."
ReplyDeleteMusta been some good acid
This isn't quite the same as near death, I guess, but still. On my motorcycle and slowing down, almost stopped, to turn left on a 2-lane blacktop when I realize a jacked up Jeep is coming from behind at 70 mph. No way I can get out of the way in time and damn - I just know I'm going die. 3 basic thoughts went through my head - 1, well this sucks but I guess it's my time, - 2, I hope it doesn't hurt too much before I die, and - 3, maybe if I get my bike perfectly straight I'll have a better chance.
ReplyDeleteJeep hit me, threw the bike straight forward, I managed to keep it upright enough to guide it into a ditch before jumping off. Not a scratch. Some bruised and sore back muscles, but alive and well. Still can't believe how calm I was through the whole thing. Didn't really get scared until 10 or 15 minutes later, after it was all over (and the damn jeep stopped long enough to see me standing, then drove off).
So yeah, if it's my time I guess just face the music and deal with it. No whining or crying, we all die eventually.
My grandmother had an NDE while on the operating table and was "dead" for nearly five minutes. She saw relatives and friends and felt a real warmth. Shortly before she really died, she related this to me and said how confident and unafraid she was. Also that she knew my Dad was waiting for her. She also told me she'd been interviewed by a doctor researching experiences like hers. He included her experience in his book, the first (as I understood her) such book on NDEs.
ReplyDeleteIn my line of work I was in a lot of hospitals, nursing homes etc. As a young man one thing I heard people in Nursing Homes say over and over was, "I wish I had." I'm in my seventies and I did. Matter of fact, I still do. I hike, go to a gym, walk the beaches swim nekked in me pool, ride a bicycle and lots of other stuff. I also, take care of my yard, mowing, pruning, weed whacking, maintain my pool and keep the house clean. I say this cuz most folks around me hire a service. Most folks around me are near my age, fat and the most exercise they get is walking to the mailbox.
ReplyDeleteI started working with geriatrics in high school. By the time I was done with that I was in college and had worked with old folks for almost 8 years. I witnessed the aging process and the death process several times. So at a rip young age i was blessed to receive much in the way of how to live ones life. A resounding theme was live life while you are young, it sucks to get old. So that is what I have done. Yes I have received much consternation from faintly and friends about buckling down, or the one I love, when are you going to grow up? Now at 63 I have done more living than all those critics. Have I grown up? Hell no. Will I ever? I hope not. And the critics, they are old people now that did nothing and they still criticize me as I continue to have fun!! its one thing to grow old, its another to grow up.
ReplyDeleteCavguy
Cavguy, I like your attitude. I don't listen to the critics either. Every day is a great day and I have no idea what it will bring. Almost every person my age that I get around wants to talk about their ailments, what the Dok tor says or show me pictures on their phones of their grandkids. I stay to hell away from them people. They have zero of what I want in life. I still got a lot a hell raisin ta do.
DeleteI don't want to talk about it
ReplyDeleteJD
The last time I visited my father was in a hospital room. The details would take too much time, but from his actions and comments, I realized that, given time, the soul prepares to leave the body. My father died a couple of days later. He was 69 years old. Ten years later, he appeared in a dream. He said, "I need your help with something." I said, "Okay." He said, "You'll have to come with me." I woke up finger-snap fast. Just like that. And I said, "Not just yet." I have been almost dead at least three times. I am not afraid of it.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are here.
ReplyDeleteMe too, believe me.
DeleteTo the non anonymous folks here, I always enjoy reading your comments. They really "resonate" with me. You folks have and continue to live a great life. My hat's off to you. Ohio Guy
DeleteTook care of a cardiac ICU patient once, young woman apparently without bad habits who just got really really unlucky -- had a severe viral cardiomyopathy and was on the transplant list. Anyway, one night she coded and "died". The team began CPR. She flailed her arms during chest compressions, and went completely limp when we stopped compressions for a moment. (I was putting in a right IJ central line, obvs you don't want to be moving the patient when putting a fucking big needle in her neck. Also, as the medical people here know, you pause periodically to check for return of spontaneous rhythm.) Anyway, she survived.
ReplyDeleteFast forward a few days when she's been extubated and can talk. I ask her if she remembers anything. Yeah. "So were you, like, fighting us off during CPR? What was going on with the arms?" Patient looks at me dead level. "No. I was trying to hold myself in." I must have looked as confused as I felt because she elaborated. "You know, inside my body. When that guy [and she described the resident doing compressions] was doing CPR I was on the bed looking up at you all. Whenever they stopped, I was on the ceiling looking down on your heads. I was trying to keep from leaving my body."
I dunno what to think about all this in the "big picture" sense, but I am convinced that patient experienced what she says she did.
I didn't tell anybody about my experience. Back then, it wasn't a well known phenomenon and people already suspected I wasn't hooked up right, so I kept it to myself for a couple years. When I finally did tell my dad, he just smiled and said 'Sure you did, son."
ReplyDeleteI believe. One of my fondest thoughts when my Dad passed away was that he was above looking down as I kissed his forehead and said quietly "I love you, Dad".
DeleteAnd right now I'm balling like a baby at the memory of it over 15 years ago.
Happened to me scuba diving. Out of air, out of strength, felt like I was gonna nut.
ReplyDeleteThen a fuckin' lifeguard grab me. Pissed me off for a minute.
I once had a girl tell me that she'd rather die than go out on a date with me. Judging by her screams, I suspect she was lying to me.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, that is exactly the way it happened. He must a been a good guy.
ReplyDeleteBut think about your experience this way... if you "left your body" and could see all that was going on around you, the implications of that is profound. That your consciousness can be totally independent of your physical body suggests that consciousness is not in the brain, but possibly exists independent of your brain... and body. So the question becomes, What happens to our consciousness, our mind, at the time of death? Does it stick around? Does it go somewhere else? I've never had the experience, but I've read literally hundreds of accounts of people who have, and the implication is that our consciousness, the essence of what makes us unique, survives death.
ReplyDeleteThe spirit in you. That spirit is untethered to your mortal parts; the spirit is forever. So why don't we know everything? Because it is not for us to know.
DeleteWirecutter's so right. In High School I actually turned down a kinky oriented 3 some (not a Devil's triangle here, either boys -they were both hot as Hell) because I wanted to "be faithful" to my High School sweetheart. I've always regretted this decision... even though I became Christian about 6 years later.
ReplyDeleteI've had two. When age 4 I died in surgery. I saw my body on the operating table, I saw dad in the hallway, I saw mother in another room by herself bawling her eyes out. She knew. I was telling her it is OK, it truly is OK. She couldn't hear me.
ReplyDeleteIt was incredibly peaceful and more loving than can be imagined. My every molecule was perfectly content. I saw a bright silver thread below my getting longer as I went further from earth.
Now I am closer to earth, now I see my lifeless body on the table looking serene. A nurse is cleaning up in the OR. She heard or seen something. She becomes greatly animated and runs out to grab the Dr who is talking with dad in the hallway. A team scrubbed and came into the room.
This was written in medical journals. I was actually pronounced dead. 18 years later I met that surgeon. His recount matched what I had here briefly described.
Age ten, I was sick with the flu. Think of this, July in Hawaii and I'm shivering. I was lying on the couch under a blanket. I asked for another blanket. As mom put a thin wool blanket on me it felt like a ton of weight.
Instantly, I am looking down at my unmoving body, I felt that same consuming peace and deep love. Everything was OK. Everything was in perfect harmony.
What these experiences have taught me is there is a loving God who loves us very much. These plus two other experience prove to me beyond any doubt that this is true. No one can ever cause me to deny this. Not because of what I think I know but because of what had happened. Some may say these are signs. I wasn't looking for a sign as many people have done.