As my last few posts have mentioned, I suffered a heart attack on Halloween of this year.  During that time, my heart stopped and I died for approximately fifteen minutes.  During that time, something occurred to me that I cannot quite explain.  Many people claim to have an out-of-body experience where they often see a white tunnel and feelings of peace or they are floating above their body and witnessing people working on them, but I didn’t see any of this.  I am not exactly sure what did happen, but hopefully this will help me get a better understanding. Here are five things I did see while I was “dead”.

The Whirlpool
My wife and I were having a Monty Python Scavenger Hunt and I was sword fighting with foam weapons when I had my heart attack.  My body had gone into a state where my heart stopped pumping blood to my entire body.  I remember feeling dizzy and continuing to fall forward as I lost consciousness.  Almost immediately, I felt as if I was caught up in a whirlpool flipping around – head over heels - in darkness.  There was the feeling of my clothes being ripped away and my face being pulled off.

The Plane of Light and Darkness
I continued to tumble in the dark until a large parallelogram appeared from out of no where.  The best way to explain this would be to compare it to the mirror of the Phantom Zone in the movie, “Superman II”.  On one side of it was a pure, white light.  On the other, there was utter darkness.  It was flipping around -just like I was – as it moved towards me. As I the white side came to a stop in front of me I could make out people in the white side.  Their hands were reaching out towards me and I recognized some of them: A neighbor boy (named Scott) who died in a train wreck when we were six; an old Italian woman who used to scare me when I was little because she spoke very little English and wore a head scarf; a man who used to sing in the choir and walk all over my hometown; and an uncle I barely knew who used to ride a three-wheeled bicycle with a bell on it.  They beckoned me forward and I asked them where were my grandparents?  They told me my grandparents weren’t there.  I wanted to see my grandparents but they couldn’t help me and I hesitated.

The Human Piñata
As I was talking to these people, I was hit by something very hard. It sent me spinning again and this time I was on the dark side of the plane.  I started hearing people yelling my name and my wife was calling out to me, “The Black Knight Always Triumphs!” and my friend Mike was another voice that I recognized.  The rest of the voices I couldn’t identify.  I was hit hard again and again.  I remember it being painful and I couldn’t concentrate on the voices. They wanted me to wake up and I kept thinking that I’d be awake in any minute.  There was now light coming out of the dark side of the plane and I knew that’s where I had to go.  Even though it hurt, this side was “right”.

Movement
I then remember going through the gate in my side yard.  I could still hear the voices, but was just starting to cross into the plane of darkness.  From here, everything went black as I grabbed onto the sides to stop my body from spinning.  Everything became quiet and the screaming of my name stopped.  From what I later understand, they had put me in the ambulance by this time and I my heart started to beat again in an atrial fibrillation – or a sporadic rhythm.  Although it was weak, my body was trying to come back. From here, I blacked out and don’t remember anything until after I was in the hospital.

Awareness and Beyond
When I came to again, I had a tube down my throat and they were trying to tell me what happened.  Comments were being made that they weren’t sure if I was brain dead.  This was really scary because I was aware now, but couldn’t move.  I could make out that they were going to send me on a life flight to the Cleveland Clinic and it would be about 12-13 minutes to get there.  As they wheeled me out of the hospital, my wife told me that she would meet me at the hospital and several of my friends were there to wish me off.  We went down a hallway and I was put in the helicopter and turned.  The medics in the copter were talking to me, but I couldn’t respond.  They made more comments about me being dead for a long time and whether I was brain dead or had brain damage (I do not).  I remember a line from John Irving’s book, “The World According to Garp” going through my head – “I’m flying Helen, I’m really flying”  – and then realized that the character Garp had died in his helicopter ride.  I told myself I wasn’t going to die and put the thought out of my head.  The next thing I knew we had landed and they were taking me out.  The one medic said to me “Welcome to Cleveland” as I could see the propeller blade above me.  The night sky was cold and clear and then I was inside.  I remember them working on my body and then there was nothing.  I awoke two days later.

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