Dr. Pim van Lommel describes a surgery that involved cooling a patient’s
body and inducing cardiac arrest. “Pamela Reynolds was a thirty-five-year-old
busy working mother who had carved out a name for herself as a
singer-songwriter. In 1991 she experienced extreme dizziness, loss of speech,
and difficulty in moving her body. Her physician recommended a CAT scan, which
revealed a giant aneurysm in one of her cerebral arteries close to the brain
stem. If this aneurysm burst, a cerebral hemorrhage would be immediately fatal.
“Neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Spetzler at the Barrow Neurological Institute decided to operate on Pamela, even though her chances of survival were slight. Everything that happened during her operation was carefully recorded. During the operation her body temperature was lowered to approximately 50° F. She was on a heart-lung machine because of the loss of all cardiac electrical activity (cardiac arrest), which always occurs during severe hypothermia. All the blood had been drained from her head. The electrical activity of her cerebral cortex (EEG) and of her brain stem (‘evoked potentials’ through 100-decibel clicks emitted by small molded speakers inserted into her ears) was under constant observation; in both cases, there was no activity whatsoever.
Cardiologist Michal Sabom would later appear with Pamela in a BBC program to discuss her surgery. In this program, he explained that: During standstill, Pam’s brain was found dead by all three clinical tests—her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Her eyes were lubricated to prevent drying and then taped shut. Additionally, she was under deep general anesthesia. In his book entitled Light and Death: One Doctor’s Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences (1998), Sabom records Pamela’s recollection of her experience.
I don’t remember seeing Doctor Spetzler at all. One of his fellows was with me at that time. After that nothing. Until the unpleasant sound. It was guttural. It was reminiscent of being in a dentist’s office. I remember the top of my head tingling, and I just sort of popped out of the top of my head. The further out of my body I got, the more clear the tone became. I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down. I was the most aware I’ve ever been in my entire life. And I was looking down at my body, and I knew it was my body. But I didn’t care.[1]
During her surgery, Pam Reynolds “was fully instrumented under medical observation and known to be clinically dead. Clinical death is the state in which vital signs have ceased: the heart is in ventricular fibrillation, there is a total lack of electrical activity on the cortex of the brain (flat EEG), and brain-stem activity is abolished (loss of the corneal reflex, fixed and dilated pupils, and loss of the gag reflex).” Yet, “she was able to recall verifiable facts about her surgery that she could not have known if she were not in some way conscious during these events.”[2]
I was metaphorically sitting on Dr. Spetzler’s shoulder. It wasn’t like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision. There was so much in the operating room that I didn’t recognize, and so many people. I remember the instrument in his hand; it looked like the handle of my electric toothbrush. I had assumed that they were going to open the skull with a saw. I had heard the term saw, but what I saw looked a lot more like a drill than a saw. It even had little bits that were kept in this case that looked like the case that my father stored his socket wrenches in when I was a child. I saw the grip of the saw, but I didn’t see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch. I remember the heart-lung machine. I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognize. And I distinctly remember a female voice saying: ‘We have a problem. Her arteries are too small.’ And then a male voice: ‘Try the other side.’
Also, Pam recalls, I felt a ‘presence.’ I sort of turned around to look at it. And that’s when I saw the very tiny pinpoint of light. And the light started to pull me, but not against my will. I was going of my own accord because I wanted to go. And there was a physical sensation—I know how that must sound, nonetheless it’s true—there was a physical sensation, rather like going over a hill real fast. It was like The Wizard of Oz—being taken up in a tornado vortex, only you’re not spinning around. The feeling was like going up in an elevator real fast. It was like a tunnel, but it wasn’t a tunnel. And I went toward the light.
The closer I got to the light, I began to discern different figures, different people, and I distinctly heard my grandmother calling me. It was a clearer hearing than with my ears. It was a clearer hearing than with my ears. And I immediately went to her. The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a light bulb. I noticed that as I began to discern different figures in the light―and they were all covered with light, they were light, and had light permeating all around them―they began to form shapes I could recognize and understand. And I saw many, many people I knew and many, many I didn’t know, but I knew that I was somehow and in some way connected to them and it felt great! Everyone I saw, looking back on it, fit perfectly into my understanding of what that person looked like at their best during their lives.
I recognized a lot of people. One of them was my grandmother. And I saw my uncle Gene, who passed away when he was only thirty-nine years old. He taught me a lot; he taught me to play my first guitar. It was communicated to me—that’s the best way I know how to say it because they didn’t speak like I’m speaking—that if I went all the way into the light something would happen to my physically. They would be unable to put (this) me back into the body (me), like I had gone too far and they couldn’t reconnect. I wanted to go into the light, but I also wanted to come back. I had children to be reared. I asked if God was the light, and the answer was: ‘God is not the light, the light is what happens when God breathes.’ And I distinctly remember thinking: ‘I’m standing in the breath of God.’
At some point in time I was reminded that it was time to go back. Of course I had made my decision to go back before I ever lay down on that table. But, you know, the more I was there, the better I liked it [laughs]. My uncle was the one who brought me back down to the body, but I didn’t want to get in it because it looked pretty much like what it was: void of life. I knew it would hurt, so I didn’t want to get in.
But my uncle says: ‘Like diving into a swimming pool, just jump in.’ No. ‘What about the children?’ You know what, the children will be fine [laughs]. And he goes: ‘Honey, you got to go.’ No. Then he pushed me. It’s taken a long time, but I think I’m ready to forgive him for that [laughs]. It was like diving into a pool of ice water. It hurt!
When I came back, and I was still under general anesthesia in the operating theater, they were playing, ‘Hotel California,’ and the line was ‘You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.’ I mentioned [later] to Dr. Brown that that was incredibly insensitive, and he told me that I needed to sleep more [laughter]. When I regained consciousness, I was still on the respirator.
Pam’s surgeon believes her account: I don’t think that the observations she made were based on what she experienced as she went into the operating theater. They were just not available to her. For example the drill was all covered up. I find it inconceivable that the normal senses, such as hearing, let alone the fact that she had clicking devices in each ear, that there was any way for her to hear through normal auditory pathways.
Van Lommel points out: “During the operation Pam could hear the conversation between Spetzler and the female cardiovascular surgeon operating in her groin to link her up to the heart-lung machine. When the cardiovascular surgeon made an incision in her right groin, she found that Pamela’s veins and arteries were too small, so she had to switch to the left side. The doctors had a brief exchange on this matter. Pamela heard these remarks and repeated them word for word.”[3]
Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (HarperOne, 2010), v-xviii.
[1] Ibid., 173.
[2] Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, The Spiritual Brain, 155.
[3] Consciousness Beyond Life, 174-177. For a video about this NDE, see “Pam Reynolds – Life After Death” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R654H_qOvA.
No comments:
Post a Comment