Out-of-body experience during surgery

Mike was hopeful as he was prepped to receive a pancreas and kidney transplant, to replace his damaged organs. After his surgery, as his wife, Kim, was sitting with him, his first words to her were, My donor’s name is Danne. When later Kim asked him how he knew his donor’s name, Mike told her his experience.

I remember that everything before the operation was a blur. I was so excited and rushed and, you know how I felt. He paused. You know someone died so I can live. That’s giving the ultimate gift. And his eyes welled up with tears.  

Something happened to me in there. Something happened during surgery. 

At some point I realized I could hear all of the conversations in the operating room, and then I could see what was happening to me from up above. There was no pain; I just watched everything. I saw the organs brought into the OR after mine had been removed. They were in a blue container and packed in ice. At that moment, I felt such an extraordinary wave of love and gratitude. It was so intimate, so profound, that in that moment I said, “I want to see my donor.”

In the next instant, I just seemed to pass through a wall. Just like that! And then I saw him; he was lying there. He was a real good-looking man, with long, sandy hair, and he looked about my age. Mike paused as if struggling for words. I was just sucked up into the light. You know, Kim, it as like a giant vacuum cleaner, he said with a smile. I felt myself suddenly, abruptly lifted up by this incredible force, this light, and I heard the words, “Danne died and you are going to live.”

I saw three luminous beings. One of them I recognized as my aunt. She was wearing the scarf I’d given her before she died. Next to her was Danne, and the other being, well, he was so familiar, someone who had known me all my life, but I just could figure out who he was. I felt such love, such passion, and such joy. Kim, there just aren’t words. There aren’t words for it. He paused. But you know, I’m different now. I know something. I know who I am, and I will forever know that I was in a sacred, familiar place. I will never fear anything again. Life and love is all there is.

Danne Lynch had died that night in a car accident, and after Kim discovered in Danne’s published obituary the address of his mother, Kim wrote her a note expressing her gratitude for her son’s organ donations. Several weeks later Mike and Kim met Danne’s mother, and when Mike saw a photo of Danne he said that was the person he saw in his out-of-body experience during surgery.

Janis Amatuzio, Beyond Knowing: Mysteries and Messages of Death and Life from a Forensic Pathologist (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2006), 114-118.