Dr. John's "second death"

Dr. Laurin Bellg writes of Dr. John Martin’s experience after what he described as his “first death” in an army hospital during World War II. “As he began to recover and to gain strength, he was started on a clear liquid diet to test the ability of his damaged gut to handle oral intake. While sipping tepid broth from a cup one day, it suddenly went down the wrong way and he began to choke. In the violence paroxysms of coughing that ensued, he popped some of the sutures that held his abdomen together and blood began seeping from his belly, soaking the bandages and leaching onto the sheets beneath him. Frantic calls for help erupted all around him. A nearby surgeon grabbed a gurney and began issuing orders to get him back to the operating room.

“That’s the last he remembered until he was once more in the surgical suite staring down at his body. He watched as a team quickly set up a sterile field and began breaking down the rest of his abdominal sutures. He saw them dive deeper into his belly to reach the repairs from his previous surgery that had broken loose during his intense fit of coughing. Once more, he lost a lot of blood and became very unstable. That’s when he died for the second time.

“With vital signs losing hold, his body quickly decompensated into an unstable cardiac rhythm that required several minutes of resuscitation to bring him back. Again, he saw the whole thing from above his physical body and watched the team fighting to keep him alive before he drifted away once more into what he referenced as a beautiful space of total love and acceptance.

“This time he described the reunion with the cloud of total peace as euphoric. It was like coming home after being away for so long. He then slowly became aware of another presence that he could feel but could not necessarily see. He knew he was not alone, but what was strange to him was that the presence seemed so familiar—he knew it intimately and it knew him. He was certain of this without knowing why. Again, the voice spoke and told him he must return, that it was not his time to die.

“Once more he descended toward his body as the resuscitation efforts succeeded, and blinked into sudden unconsciousness only to awaken sometime later on the surgical ward. But this time was different. He felt himself only loosely tied to his physical body as he drifted in and out several times, spontaneously floating above and beside himself on numerous separate occasions. When this happened he was fully aware of his surroundings and other conversations going on around him, although looking at his body on the bed below, the physical self seemed to be sleeping or sedated. He shouldn’t have been aware and watching himself, he reasoned, but he was.

“Working out for himself that the most logical explanation must be that his medical catastrophes had resulted in some mental imbalance, he decided not to breathe a word of his experience to anyone lest they think him crazy. He had invested too much of his life and energy into becoming a doctor. It was too great a risk to his career to admit that he had perhaps, as he ultimately determined, suffered some type of psychosis. He worried that in talking about his two deaths, as he now referred to them, he would lose credibility and potentially his license to practice medicine.

“The experience changed him though—internally at least. The more time that passed and the more sane he felt, the less inclined he was to think he was crazy. But the experience itself fit no process or paradigm he was familiar with. He couldn’t explain it to himself, so how could he possibly explain it to others? Not growing up in a particularly religious family, and always a natural pragmatist, he had never even entertained the thought of a life after death or considered the possibility that consciousness could survive beyond the physical body. Yet he had experienced it—twice!

“I was impacted by how reluctant he had been to share his story with even his most trusted colleagues and closest family, and yet I was familiar with the predicament. With the sort of barriers and judgments we, as a medical community, impose upon ourselves around phenomena that we cannot readily explain, it is the rare caregiver who would be open to receive such a story from a colleague.

“As he lay dying, he confessed to me deep regret about how he had let the thick veneer of professional code restrict what he shared with others. When his patients had shared personal stories with him of their own near-death encounters, he confessed that even then he was afraid to tell them what had happened to him. Enslaved by a social and professional persona he felt obligated to uphold, as much as he wanted to, he could never muster the courage to share something so personal with his patients. In hindsight, he felt that he had robbed them of the gift of a validation of their experience from someone they looked up to and trusted.

If I had only had the courage to tell my patients that the same thing has happened to me, he confessed, I would have done them a great service. But as it happened, I was too concerned with my own reputation—what my colleagues and patients would think of me—that I held my tongue. And I have to say, he paused, and then continued quietly, avoiding direct eye contact, it remains one of the greatest regrets of my life, both professionally and personally.

Even as my own wife lay dying, he continued softly, I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I believed something wonderful waited for her on the other side. I just couldn’t find the words and in her last moments I didn’t want her to wonder why I had withheld that from her all those years. Cupping his hands loosely in his lap and with shoulders slumped forward, he lifted his eyes toward me and grinned, I’m guessing she knows by now, eh?

“We chuckled together. Even in such a vulnerable moment, I admired his ability to soften the edges with humor.

“I understood Dr. John’s reserve—I’ve lived it. I’m grateful to him, though, for his display of courage and sharing a very personal story with me. Because of his generosity of spirit and words of quiet wisdom, not only as a patient but also as a fellow physician, I found the confidence to document these wonderful stories that patients have graciously allowed me to share with you.”

Laurin Bellg, Near Death in the ICU, 7-12.