A Little Taste of Death

            Just as we cannot choose the moment of our birth, so we cannot choose the moment of our death. I am speaking of natural death, not suicide. For some people death is a crash of glass and a crush of metal. For others it is a slow wasting away with time to ponder the uncertain course of a life. For me, it was a quiet surprise. Here is my story.

            I was working in a hospital records department. Newly toiling on the midnight shift and not doing well with the change in schedule after three weeks. I couldn’t sleep for more than four hours at a time and I was living on Red Bull, Mountain Dew and my determination to make it through the night. Not to mention strong coffee with espresso shots. In other words, I was a train wreck in the making. My train left the tracks five minutes before the shift ended.

            I had always imagined that I would know when I was dying and that I would have some time to prepare myself for the ending. Maybe think of some profound last words. Something like “Oh no, not again!” or “ I have a $150,000.00 in gold hidden in the…(ack, gasp, thud).” Or even make my peace with God. But that was not to be. I looked up from my computer monitor and said to myself, “That’s funny, I feel like I am going to faint.”  I didn’t faint or stagger out of my chair; instead I died.

            Five minutes before my shift ended, I was filling out my time sheet for the day. I was weary from the shift change and anxious for the workday to end. It was my 37^th wedding anniversary and I wanted to get home to rest before going out to celebrate our marriage with my wife. As previously mentioned, I felt faint. Two hours later I woke up as someone was inserting a tube into my neck and I saw my wife looking at me with tear-filled eyes. My first thought was; why am I dreaming this? My second thought was; am I awake? An assortment of tubes, hanging bottles and beeping medical machinery soon convinced me that something had gone horribly wrong. A great deal had happened in those two hours. Here is the timeline that was told to me by co-workers and medical people.

            I fainted as my heart went into ventricular fibrillation (V-Fib) and I ceased to breath. The 400 beats per minute left my heart quivering spasmodically and not pumping. This is where the chain of survival began. I collapsed against the back of my chair with my face tilted up. There was a snoring sound as the last breath left my lungs. (death rattle?) A co-worker was concerned and came over. She said my eyes were open and fearful. Her quick thinking and response was the first step in my survival. Employees at the hospital carry a card along with their identity badge that lists the phone number to call for a Code Event. She made the call.

            Thirty feet from the door of the Records Department is the office of Nursing Administration for the hospital. The time clock where nurses swipe in their badge is in that hallway. Around 7:00 o’clock there is an assortment of nurses coming and going. There is also a crash cart in that hallway that is stocked with an automatic defibrillator device (AED). Within moments of the Code Blue there were medical professionals assessing the situation and performing CPR upon my heart that had ceased to pump. Others were bringing out the defibrillator to shock the heart from its arrhythmia. At one point there were a dozen doctors and nurses working on me. I was told that CPR was performed on me for ten minutes. I was flat lining and unresponsive. At some time after resuscitation, I tried to leave. In the classic pattern of guys everywhere, I insisted that I was fine and wanted to go home. Needless to say, I was sedated for my own safety. I have no memory of this, but it rings true. I hate being the center of attention when I didn’t instigate it.

            I have long thought of the timing that was central to my survival. At 6:30 there probably wouldn’t have been nurses in the hallway. I might not have been noticed if it wasn’t close to a shift change in the office with extra staff around. Remember, seconds count. At 7:10 I would have been in the parking structure or in the elevator far from help. At 7:20 I would have been in my car heading for the expressway. I might have killed others. Every other time frame leads to death or brain damage from lack of oxygen. There were quick thinking people around. There was a defibrillator nearby. There were trained people that responded. In so many ways, things could have followed a very different path. As I lay there with my life flowing away, my co-workers were gathered together praying for me. I believe that their prayers were part of my survival. Because of the trauma and sedation that I experienced that time is blank to my direct memory. But some things demand to be remembered. After I survived, I had a very detailed, very vivid recurring dream. I think my brain had memories that somehow needed to be processed. I believe this dream that I experienced, at least five times in full detail, is a memory of an event that occurred as I lay dying. My heart tells me so.

            I was walking down a great hallway with many side branches. The ceiling was very high and vaulted. The walls were wainscoted with wood paneling above waist height. The floors were carpeted, predominately a dark green with a vine and flower pattern. Not brightly ornate, but rather familiar and comfortable. I felt at home. It reminded me of an old German restaurant in Michigan that I have been to a number of times. There were sconces giving off a soft light. The air was filled with music of all sorts. I remembered that there were places to sit for a bit, but there was a sense that the main hall was the way to the destination. Down each cross hallway that I passed, I could hear music. Each hallway had distinctive music coming from it. I remembered stopping a number of times to listen. I liked the Baroque and the Zydeco. When I looked down the hallways, I could see shadows in motion. It was like shadow puppets projected on the walls. There were bright lights reflecting the movements like dancing or there were undefined shapes playing along the walls. It seemed that there was a party in a big room that each of the various hallways led to. I could not see people directly, only their shadows. There were others in the corridor, but strangely we didn’t speak to each other. I nodded and smiled to a lady listening to Bach as I sat next to her. Her name was Margaret (?). I could hear voices behind me that seemed familiar, but they were somehow annoying or distracting. The voices were vexing me, continually calling my name. They were telling me to come back. I did not want to go back. I wanted to get to the end of the hallway. It was full of movement and shadow like the other hallways, but I knew that this was the main one. I knew that I could go back to the other rooms after I got to the main room. I just knew it. The journey seemed to be going slowly, but my sense of time wasn’t urgent, only purposeful. The voices nagged at me. And then things started to slip away. I no longer walked, but I felt pulled back the way I had come. I remember being upset that I couldn’t move forward. The voices became more persistent. Then they were gone. I was no longer in the corridor. I was very sad and frustrated. Then the dream ended.

            Does this dream mean anything? I don’t know. It was very important to me in the days after I was revived. It is still vivid in my memory. Was it only a dream? Is it the memory of a near death experience? Is it a memory from a dying brain trying to process the loss of oxygen and input? If I was an atheist or a Hindu, would the imagery be different? I do know that I like experiences that create more questions than answers. I also know that if I have to make a choice between random luck or God’s Grace, I will take the power of God. He has carried me through some difficult times, and I feel His presence in my life. The Lord has purpose and plans that I might never know. Why was I saved, when so many others die from cardiac arrest? The diagnosis was sudden cardiac death (SDC). That sounds pretty final. It certainly wasn’t a reward for anything that I had done. My wife Miriam thinks it is quite possible that it happened to encourage or give hope to someone else. Perhaps it was for a nurse that had seen too much death and needed to save a life. Maybe my story was for someone who feared dying and might be comforted by my story. I know I feel different about death after this experience. I value the small moments more than I ever had before. Enjoy the beauty around you. Life is a gift. Make sure you that you take time to unwrap the gift. I did not know that my world was ending when it did. There wasn’t time for a deathbed prayer or a last grasp towards the hand of God. I didn’t even know that I had died. Do I believe that there is something on the other side of life besides oblivion? Yes, I do. Do I know what it is? No, I don’t. I do believe that I caught a glimpse of something that I keep trying to understand.