NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES: THE PROOF
2/28/06

A simple trip to Tesco [Bitish supermarket] one sunny October afternoon
ended in a brush with death and a life-changing experience for Mike
Richards. Shopping with his wife Valerie, the 60-year-old collapsed with
excruciating pain in his abdomen. He went to hospital where he had an
emergency surgery for bowel cancer.
Mike was so desperately ill, he spent months in intensive care and lost
six stone [96lb] in weight. He seemed to be on the slow road to
recovery, so one afternoon the staff thought he was well enough to sit
in a chair. Then suddenly, he deteriorated.
Mike had fallen deeply unconscious - yet he can remember everything that
happened next.
"My body was in the bed but I was floating above it, looking down, and
all my pain had gone. I saw a nurse putting something that looked like a
pink lollipop in my mouth. Then I saw the physiotherapist sticking her
head around the curtains and she looked really worried.

"I looked up and I was in a pink room with no floor or ceiling and
standing in front of me were my father and my wife's mother. I
recognised her from photo's because I had never met her while she was
alive.
"Standing between them was a man with long, scruffy, dark hair and
wearing a long, white cloak. He had dark skin and very bright eyes and I
felt drawn to look at him. The man spoke but didn't move his mouth. It
was like telepathy. He said, 'You are not ready, go back'. I looked at
my father and he told me the same thing.
"I felt myself slowly floating down and then I was suddenly back in my
body and the terrible pain came back."

What happened next was even more amazing. Mike, a lifelong cerebral
palsy sufferer, found himself able to use his withered left hand.
"When I woke up I tried to grab the rail around my bed to pull myself
up. My left hand has always been closed like a claw and I've never been
able to use it. But when I went to grab the rail, my hand opened and I
could hold the rail. I couldn't believe it."
Mike still has the use of his once-useless hand and he puts it down to
his near-death experience.

His remarkable brush with an apparent after-life is now part of the
first ever long-term clinical study in the UK into near-death
experiences - or NDEs as they are known. The study has been carried out
by Penny Sartori, the intensive-care nurse who was trying to revive him
while he was close to death.
And what this pioneering study seems to suggest is that these
experiences - previously dismissed as hallucinations of the very ill,
possibly because of medication, might be anything but.

Penny says: "An intensive care ward is the perfect place for a study
like this as most of the patients are hovering close to death every
day."
For five years Penny has interviewed every patient who survived the
intensive care ward where she works at Morriston Hospital in Swansea to
see if they had similar experiences to Mike Richards. She has just
published her study and the results make challenging reading for
sceptics.
Penny says: "Mike's description of our attempts to revive him was
absolutely accurate and it would have been impossible for him to have
seen what was happening from the bed as he was deeply unconscious. He
saw the pink suction tube we used to clear his mouth and he saw the
physiotherapist looking around the screens.

"The apparent spontaneous healing of his claw hand is also remarkable.
It should not have been possible for him to open his hand without an
operation to release the tendons and yet he not only opened it but had
full use of it for the first time in his life."
Mike's experience illustrates one ofthe most remarkable findings of
Penny's work. This study is the first one of its kind to find that
patients who see their bodies during their near death experiences can
describe accurately how the medical staff revived or resuscitated them.
Penny says: "The ones who didn't report seeing their own bodies tried to
guess what happened and always got it wrong. They usually described
scenarios from TV shows like Casualty and ER and very often thought they
had been 'shocked' with a defibrillator even when they hadn't."

Penny says that other patients in her study had experiences that are
also very difficult to explain using current scientific theories.
Lorraine Everton, 49, had major surgery at Morriston Hospital in June
last year. During the operation she had two cardiac arrests - and an
NDE.
Lorraine remembers: "I was so afraid of dying before the operation that
I wrote my will. But during the operation I felt myself in a place that
was warm. There was no floor or ceiling. I saw a figure coming towards
me and I realised it was my Auntie Joyce. She was surrounded by light.

"She had died in 1981 when she was in her 80s, but she looked like a
girl in her 20s. She stood in front of me and told me, 'You are safe
now'. I felt an overwhelming feeling of love, as if I were loved and
safe for the first time in my life. The feeling was so overwhelming it
was even stronger than my daughter's birth.
"It was such an amazing experience I am not afraid to die any more -
even though before the operation I was terrified of dying. But now I
think God can have me today if he wants."
Lorraine woke up four days later in intensive care, unable to speak as
she was on a ventilator. She motioned to the nurse who was caring for
her, who gave her paper to write on. She wrote: "I died twice" - a
reference to the two heart attacks. Lorraine still cannot explain how
she was aware of this.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the study is that NDEs tend to
follow a set pattern. Typical examples start with an out-of-body
experience where the person "pops out" of their body and floats above
it, looking down. If they have been in pain, that pain disappears. They
are then drawn up to another place, sometimes through a tunnel towards a
bright light, all the while feeling great peace and tranquility.
Sometimes their life flashes before them, or they might meet deceased
relatives or a religious figure or "being of light". They are given
messages by the people they meet, who seem to speak to the
telepathically.

Very often the person may encounter a barrier of some kind, like a
stream or a gate, but they are usually told that they have to go back
and that they cannot cross that point. Then they find themselves back in
their bodies and their pain returns immediately.
Some medical professionals claim that an out-of-body experience is the
dying brain trying to make sense out of what is going on around the
patient through what they can feel and hear. The visions, they insist,
are hallucinations brought on by drugs or medication and by the body's
release of endorphins, its own natural painkillers. The tunnel has been
explained by a condition called anoxia, which is a lack of oxygen to the
brain.

But according to Penny Sartori, none of these theories can full explain
the experiences of many of her patients.
"The patients who were in pain describe it stopping as soon as they
start the NDE and that it returns immediately once they describe being
back in their body. Drugs and endorphins would produce a gradual
reduction and then a gradual increase in pain and not an immediate
change."

Near-death experiences are usually so profound and life changing that
the person who has one is never the same again.
Penny has now started interviewing patients who had NDEs while they were
young to see how they have coped with the experience. The most
remarkable is the story of Christine Barratt. She lives quietly in a
beautiful country cottage in West Wales. Twenty-five-years ago she was
an amateur athlete living in the Bahamas.
Christine, then 33, was out on a bicycle, training with two friends fom
her local running club, when a child ran out into the road in front of
her. She braked hard but was thrown over the handlebars.

In hospital she was unconscious for four days. Her skull had been so
badly fractured it had shattered like a boiled egg. But while she was
unconscious she had a near-death experience that was to change her life
and push her to the limits of human endurance.
Christine recalls: "I had a tremendous feeling of euphoria - it was more
wonderful than anything you can imagine. My life flashed in front of my
me and I saw everything in what seemed like a second.

"It was incredibly bright but it didn't hurt my eyes. A voice told me I
had a choice whether to stay or go back. It said, 'If you decide to go
back you will be stronger than you were before'.
"It was difficult trying to decide what to do. I felt like I understood
everything. I felt complete peace. I don't remember making a decision
but I woke up in the hospital."
Christine couldn't even remember who she was when she woke up, nor did
she recognise her husband. But she did remember the voice telling her
she would be stronger. So when her doctor told her she would never run
again, Christine resolved to prove him wrong.

Two months later she ran a 10-kilometre race and went on to become a
world-class long distance runner. She is one of only three women to have
run the Sydney to Melbounre ultr-distance race, which is 625 miles
non-stop with no sleep - an achievement that put here in the Guiness
Book of Records.
Christine said: "The experience was the beginning of my real running
career. Hearing that voice allowed me to go much further than I would
have gone before."

Christine's achievements are remarkable but far from unique among those
who have had an NDE. Most are characterised by a loss of the fear of
death and seem more determined to recover from their illness or injury
and go on to lead a full life.
Penny feels more research is crucial to our understanding not just of
death, but of how to treat desperately ill patients.

"I think this type of research is critical. We should all think
seriously about what happens when we die, because we all think we are
going to live to be 100 and we aren't. I started my research trying to
learn more about death but as a result I have learned more abou life and
how to live it."

Penny Sartori would like to hear from anyone who has had a near-death or
out-of-body experience. Your information will be treated in the
strictest confidence.

Contact her on drpennysartori@yahoo.co.uk