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Question:Just wanted to relate a personal experience. I used to be a 100% skeptic, but this happened to me and now I am more open and I am looking for the truth. Please let me know your thoughts.
I am an emergency room nurse. About a year ago we received a patient by ambulance in full cardiorespiratory arrest. No pulse, no effective cardiac rhythm ( refractory ventricular fibrillation ). Patient had been in arrest for at least 15 minutes prior to arrival. CPR/ACLS in progress on arrival.
To make a long story short, we worked him for about 25 minutes without positive response. The physician in charge stated that we would defibrillate one more time and if no response we would stop. One last shock, and his heart converted to a beating rhythm, and continued to impove from there, later being admitted to intensive care.
AT NO POINT DURING HIS STAY IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM WAS HE CONSCIOUS. Most of the time he was technically dead.
The next day, one of the ICU nurses called down and told us the patient wanted to see several of the ER staff. He named several of us by name, and described us to the ICU nurses. He said he wanted to see us in person “to make sure he wasn’t going crazy”.
During a slow time later that night we went upstairs and he called us by name without introductions. He told a story of floating out of his body, just below the ceiling, watching us attempt resuscitation. He said he knew our names from when we called out to each other while working on him. One thing I found especially fascinating was that he said when we defibrillated ( shocked ) him, he would be pulled back into his body for a few seconds, then end up back floating by the ceiling a few seconds after. The last time we defibbed him he was pulled back in and became unconscious. At this point he had a pulse and improved.
We have talked quite a bit about it here. Some of the staff think maybe he was actually semi-conscious the whole time, his brain remaining oxegenated and at least partly functional due to effective CPR. Something akin to anesthetized surgical patients retaining the sense of hearing and being able to relate the conversations of the operating team after they have been awakened.
Others in the group here believe it was a NDE. We reason that this would explain the out-of-body viewpoint and the retention of sight and cognitive abilities by the patient even though he was to all intents and purposes dead when we were together in the ER. There is no other way he could have known our names, either, as his family was not allowed in the room during the resuscitation.
None of us have any experience in this matter and when I stumbled on this newsgroup I thought I’d post and see what you all thought.
Answer: He learned that this kind of experience has been seen many times in this group. For those who may think the patient was semi-conscious and listening, please note the author states: “He named several of us by name, and described us to the ICU nurses.” This question is quoted from the alt.consciousness.near-death-exp newsgroup with the permission of the author. He was directed to NDE accounts for further reading.
If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her … a very dangerous proposition.
One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed gently around — she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.
And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.
I pass this on to you, my friend/family, in the same spirit.
I would like to share a photo of Sam, one of my cats. I have a few cats, always had cats for pets as long as I can remember. They are a lot of fun. My cats are all rescue cats.
Thirteen years ago, I was a gunshot victim with multiple wounds to the upper chest and abdomen area. I was resuscitated in the emergency room, and I remember everything.
I remember hearing my parents screaming and crying, with me trying to tell them I was going to be alright. It didn’t dawn on me that they could not see or hear me, until I went back to that room and saw that I was looking down on me.
Wow, then I felt myself floating down a long hall to the operating room and I watched for a while only to see a beautiful light. So bright, with a blue aura. I went into the light and I was met by spirits from my family who had went before. My grandmother told me I had to go back, but I begged her to stay. She stated that it was not my time yet. But I went passed her only to see this figure who touched me on my shoulder and said no, your time is not now, you must go back. I clung to this figures robe and said that I feel so much peace here, a great sense of calmness, this place is so beautiful, but gently I was ushered towards another light, that was yellow and white.
Then I saw a hand reach up to grab hold of mine and the figure told me to take the hand, you will be alright, for it is not your time. So I reached for the hand, only to feel like I was in a vacuum and with a thump I was back in my body.
When I returned, I heard them call a code on me and again my family rushed to my bedside. I was still clinging to the hand that brought me back and that hand belong to my baby brother, who latter told me he sat there holding my hand for 5 days and prayed that I would come back.
