Michael B NDE

Experience Description

At approximately 00:00 hours on 9-16-11, I was having extreme stomach pain. This has happened before, and only been heartburn. This pain was worse than I had experienced before so I decided that I needed my wife to take me to the emergency room as soon as possible. I woke her up and told her what was going on. Because I was a trained emergency medical technician at the time, I started trying to figure out my signs and symptoms as to what was wrong with me. My wife got dressed and drove me to the local emergency room that was only a 5-minute drive away. The pain got worse on the drive to the hospital.

We pulled up to entrance of the emergency room and I got out while my wife parked the car. I entered the triage area and told the intake nurse my signs and symptoms. I told her my pain was a 10+ on a scale of 1 to 10. She admitted me and brought me back into the emergency room trauma room. I remember my vitals were being taken while I was asked the usual intake questions. I was given a dose of Dilaudid for pain, since my pain was getting worse. After a few minutes, another nurse came to check on me and she administered another dose of Dilaudid. I started to feel better as my pain decreased. A few more minutes had passed and another dose of Dilaudid was given to me which was an overdose. (Later my wife told me they gave me 4 doses total in a short time frame)

I went into respiratory arrest and stopped breathing for several minutes due to the overdose of medication given to me. From what I remembered, I was no longer on the planet. I do not remember leaving my physical body but I was in a black void. There I experienced no time, no pain, and no nothing. I generally felt like I was in a black room, yet I could not see any walls. I felt that there were several people around me at that time. I could not see anyone but I had a very strange feeling that I was not alone. I could not make out anything in this space. I could not see myself or others. I did not see any objects. I saw just pure blackness and a lack of any light.

After the doctors called the code on me, they started to resuscitate me. I remember traveling back to my body and seeing a doctor on top of me yelling at me to start breathing.

I woke up and saw my wife hysterical. I also saw my sister-in-law in the emergency room with my wife. This was weird to me because I felt like I never lost a lot of time, yet several minutes had passed and new people were around me. When I awoke, my wife told me that I had stopped breathing for several minutes. She said that had to scream for a nurse and doctor to revive me since I had no pulse and was not breathing.

After the event, I was taken to the CT scanner where I coded again and stopped breathing. Once again, they revived me. But this time, I did not experience anything except I remember throwing up in the machine after they had bagged me with an ambu-bag. This was around 2:30 am in the morning. They told me that I had some brain damage due to the lack of oxygen. The next thing I remembered was waking up in a private hospital room around 6:30 pm. A surgeon came in to talk to me and told me that I needed to have my gallbladder removed because it was causing all of my problems.

The next day my gallbladder was removed. I spent 6 days in the hospital learning to walk again since I was still in a lot of pain from the surgery and everything else I had been through. Since this incident, I developed stage 2 kidney disease since I stopped breathing for so long that my body was not oxygenated properly. I also am on medication from the removal of my gallbladder since I still have stomach pain to this day.

I have also experienced PTSD signs and symptoms that have affected my daily life. I had a panic attack shortly after this incident. My wife and I were in the movie theater and it went dark. I rushed out the theater because I flashed back to the near death experience. The intense feeling of needing to get out of that environment was more than I could handle. I felt like I was having a panic attack. The PTSD has since been under control and I feel some what better.

I wake up everyday from sleep thinking that I should not be here. I have regrets about coming back to life. I have a very hard time dealing with what I went through and I get very upset when I hear that people had a pleasant near death experience when I had the opposite experience. I felt as if I was in purgatory and that maybe I was being put in this place as some type of judgment. But I have never lived a bad life. I was a police officer and saved people's lives. I am a good person, so why was I being judged or being put into this void? For awhile now I know that there is another form of existence that death brings to us. I have seen other people die in front of me, and I have dealt with the death of family and friends. Now I look at death as another plain of existence and I welcome it. I do not fear it.


Background Information:

Gender: Male

Date NDE Occurred: 9-16-2011

NDE Elements:

At the time of your experience, was there an associated life-threatening event? Yes Illness Allergic Reaction. Drug or medication overdose. Clinical death (cessation of breathing or heart function) My gall bladder needed to be removed. I was having a gallbladder attack when I went into the emergency room for help.

How do you consider the content of your experience? Entirely distressing

Did you feel separated from your body? Yes. I clearly left my body and existed outside it

How did your highest level of consciousness and alertness during the experience compare to your normal everyday consciousness and alertness? Normal consciousness and alertness. It was not different.

At what time during the experience were you at your highest level of consciousness and alertness? When I was revived and was brought back to life.

Were your thoughts speeded up? No

Did time seem to speed up or slow down? Everything seemed to be happening at once; or time stopped or lost all meaning. Time did not seem like something I was concerned with. I did think to myself while being there, 'What's next? Why am I here?'

Were your senses More vivid than usual? No

Please compare your vision during the experience to your everyday vision that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. It was normal. I didn't seen anything since everything around me was all black and there was an absence of light.

Please compare your hearing during the experience to your everyday hearing that you had immediately prior to the time of the experience. I did not hear or see anything during my experience.

Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere, as if by ESP? No

Did you pass into or through a tunnel? No

Did you see any beings in your experience? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any deceased (or alive) beings? No

Did you see, or feel surrounded by, a brilliant light? No

Did you see an unearthly light? No

Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world? Some unfamiliar and strange place. I was in a black void and no sense of where I was at. No walls, No light, nothing.

What emotions did you feel during the experience? None

Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness? No

Did you have a feeling of joy? No

Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe? No

Did you suddenly seem to understand everything? No

Did scenes from your past come back to you? No

Did scenes from the future come to you? No

Did you come to a border or point of no return? No

God, Spiritual and Religion:

What was your religion prior to your experience? Unaffiliated- Agnostic

Have your religious practices changed since your experience? No

What is your religion now? Unaffiliated- Agnostic

Did your experience include features consistent with your earthly beliefs? Content that was both consistent and not consistent with the beliefs you had at the time of your experience. Before this event, I felt that there was another place we would go when we die. I did believe in an after life but what I experienced was not the after life I thought would happen.

Did you have a change in your values and beliefs because of your experience? No

Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence, or hear an unidentifiable voice? No

Did you see deceased or religious spirits? No

Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)? No

During your experience, did you gain information about premortal existence? No

During your experience, did you gain information about universal connection or oneness? No

During your experience, did you gain information about the existence of God? No

Concerning our Earthly lives other than Religion:

During your experience, did you gain special knowledge or information about your purpose? Yes I feel like there is more to our physical bodies and that there is another type of existence once we die. Death is not a final outcome but I believe it is part of a journey that we will all take once we die.

During your experience, did you gain information about the meaning of life? No

During your experience, did you gain information about an afterlife? An afterlife definitely exists. I felt like I was either somewhere else or in some other type of existence. It's hard to say what I felt during my time in the black void but when I was revived by the doctors. I felt like I was sent back into my body again from where ever I was.

Did you gain information about how to live our lives? No

During your experience, did you gain information about life's difficulties, challenges and hardships? No

During your experience, did you gain information about love? No

What life changes occurred in your life after your experience? Slight changes in my life. I feel that I should not be here and that I cheated death some how. It takes a lot out of me to wake up and look forward to the new day ahead of me.

Have your relationships changed specifically because of your experience? No

After the NDE:

Was the experience difficult to express in words? Yes For the longest time I could not describe it other than being in a black room. Then someone told me about a "void" and that made more sense to me to start describing it as a black void.

How accurately do you remember the experience in comparison to other life events that occurred around the time of the experience? I remember the experience more accurately than other life events that occurred around the time of the experience. It is something I can picture and see clearly just as other traumatic events have happened to me in my life.

Do you have any psychic, non-ordinary or other special gifts after your experience that you did not have before the experience? No

Are there one or several parts of your experience that are especially meaningful or significant to you? The feeling of knowing there is another plain of existence that I will experience upon my death.

Have you ever shared this experience with others? Yes I told my wife and I have told several people and still tell them. I told a hospice nurse what happened to me and he told me that I described the first stage of death. He told me that I did not die enough to experience the light and other things that happen during a near death experience. I would say when I talk about what happened to me it has been positive. The only negative thing is when I hear people talking about meeting God or Jesus, I have a strong sense of calling that BS.

Did you have any knowledge of near death experience (NDE) prior to your experience? No

What did you believe about the reality of your experience shortly (days to weeks) after it happened? Experience was definitely real. It was too real to think that it did not happen. I have 100% recall of this event and it's the same vision day after day when I relive it. I know this happened to me. My wife saw me die, and so did my sister in law. I left this planet and I know I was somewhere else. I do not know where that was but I know it happened and I remember 100% coming back into my body.

What do you believe about the reality of your experience now? Experience was definitely real. Same as above.

At any time in your life, has anything ever reproduced any part of the experience? Yes The dark movie theater experience and even going to bed in the dark some times can trigger me.

Are there any other questions that we could ask to help you communicate your experience? I think you need to focus more on the black void experience that I had.