Experiencing "heaven" in the ER

As a new resident physician, Reggie Anderson vividly recalls receiving a young man named DeWayne in the ER, with a stabbing wound in his chest. Anderson carefully inserted a needle in DeWayne’s chest and succeeded in inflating his lung, but still there was no blood pressure. The CPR they’d been doing hadn’t worked, so as a last resort Anderson realized he had to stab the patient in the heart. Into the pericardial space and no farther, he reminded himself, but as his right hand was trembling he stopped for a moment. Please, Lord, hold my hand. I can’t do this one on my own, he prayed.

“The prayer seemed to lift me out of my chaotic environment. I took a deep breath and felt my heart slow ever so slightly as my hands grew steadier. Once again, I lifted the needle. This time in a quick downward motion, I stabbed the patient’s heart.

“Suddenly I felt a calming breeze. An air current from heaven seemed to blow all around me. Nonclotting blood rushed into the syringe, and as I held it in place, I looked up to the right and felt a slight brush of wind on my cheek. The ever-present veil—so thin, yet thick enough to separate us from the next world—was flowing freely in a heavenly breeze. Then I felt the warmth of his soul. Before anything else was said, before I looked at the machines, I knew. He was coming back.

A day later, Anderson visited DeWayne.

What’s up, Dr. Anderson? He said when I walked in.

Looks like you are!

Do you remember, Anderson asked, what happened the night they brought you to the ER?

A little, he said.

You were dead on arrival. You had no pulse, no blood pressure, and you weren’t breathing on your own.

I remember that, DeWayne said. But after I got to the hospital and you moved me onto that other bed in the room with all the bright lights, you took care of me, Doc.

You remember us moving you?

Yeah, sure, that was right before you stabbed me the first time.

You remember me stabbing you?

Yeah. Twice.

I was surprised by his recall. What else do you remember?

He described the nurse who had worked with the respiratory therapist and me. Doc, would you please tell them thank you for saving my life?

I was stunned at the clarity and detail of his memories.

Were you in pain at all?

No, I didn’t feel a thing, DeWayne said. But I was real scared.

I didn’t tell him that I was too.

But then I saw my granny.

You saw your granny? I asked. I tried to remember if I had seen her too. I’d talked to his mother, and there were other, much younger women in the waiting room when I’d spoken to her. But there wasn’t anyone that I would have considered old enough to be his grandmother.

That’s when I knew I was going to be all right.

When did you know? I was confused.

When I saw my granny, he repeated. She was sitting in the corner of the room, until you let her come over.

I let her come over?

Yeah, don’t you remember?

I didn’t, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. I’d had enough wow moments to know that God worked in some pretty unexpected ways.

I wanted to know more. What did your granny say? I asked.

She held my hand and said, “You’re going to be all right.” That’s when I knew I didn’t have to be afraid no more.

Do you remember what I was doing?

Oh, yeah, that’s when you were staring at something. It was up and to my right, kind of far off in the distance. It was like you were listening real hard for something.

I smiled. Heaven’s breath had been in the room that night, and we’d both experienced it differently. On my way out, I told one of the nurses what he’d said.

That’s odd, the nurse said.

That’s God, I said.

Later than day the nurse told Anderson she’d spoken with DeWayne’s mother. His mother said his grandmother had been dead for four years. She thought Granny must have visited DeWayne from the other side.

Anderson reflects on the meaning of this divine intervention. “I’ve spent a lot of hours marveling about what DeWayne and I each experienced that night in the ER. I don’t have all the answers, but what I’ve come to understand is that God sent DeWayne’s granny to be with him that night. Though his granny was dead, she’d been sent to restore DeWayne’s life and his spirit, just like my murdered cousins had done for me.

“It seems to me that, in rare cases, God allows dreams or visions of people we have loved, those who have gone on to the other side, to help us know and accomplish our purposes here on earth. During those moments when the veil blows freely, I know that God is at work.”

Reggie Anderson, Appointments with Heaven: The True Story of a Country Doctor’s Healing Encounters with the Hereafter (Tyndale, 2013), 137-144.

The painting of Jesus is from the Ethiopian Coptic Church community.