Igor Shakhvorostov, a resident of Tomsk, died clinically more than five times in his not so long life. And every time after the "revival" he had vivid memories of what was "beyond the bounds" there
Tomsk resident Igor Shakhvorostov vaguely remembers his first clinical death. In 1969, as a 3-year-old child, he contracted pneumonia on both sides. He and his mother were taken to the hospital, where on one of the chilly autumn days he … died. At that moment, little Igorek suddenly felt a strong pain that squeezed his entire body into a lump, clothed in sudden darkness, then a bright flash, and an incredible relief that followed. And then he, frightened by previously unknown sensations, saw the face of his mother in front of him. Her eyes were full of tears …
Multicolored ball
By the time he came of age, Igor Shakhvorostov carried a whole bunch of diseases in his frail body, even one of which was enough to bring an adult to the grave: from kidney failure to heart disease. The young man lay in hospitals for a long time, which is why he could not successfully graduate from high school and enter a university, which his unfortunate mother so dreamed of.
When Igor was eighteen years old, despite medical contraindications, he was drafted into the army. The young man ended up in a part of the railway troops serving one of the eastern sections of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. Harsh climatic conditions, heavy physical exertion and cruel "hazing" have done their dark job - after six months of service, Igor's kidneys failed, and he was hospitalized. On the third day of his stay in the hospital ward, one night he woke up in a cold sweat because he was suddenly seized by a feeling of indescribably intense fear.
Painful, as in a distant childhood, pain again fettered his chilling body. It was then that Igor learned and understood what it means when life leaves the human body. Every cell of his young body suddenly began to lose strength. His eyelids drooped limply, his fingers, which had previously been clenched into fists, opened up. At some point, Igor, through his loosely closed eyelids, saw some whitish smoke streaming from him into the black emptiness of the night, which disappeared without a trace in the darkness of the room. Now his legs began to shake finely, a new attack of pain squeezed him in a vice, and Igor's torso arched in a terrible convulsion. Immediately after that, the young man thought that he plunged into cold darkness and stopped feeling pain. Somewhere far ahead, a spot appeared, shimmering with cold white light. With each passing moment the stain grew closerand as its brightness grew, Igor felt the warmth spreading inside him. Fear and a feeling of absolute emptiness suddenly disappeared somewhere, and Igor felt calm and joyful. He watched with interest as the light source increased in size, gradually covering it from all sides.
Suddenly, some force grabbed him and began to pull him into a ball of light that had grown to gigantic proportions, shimmering with unimaginable shades of colors. Igor willingly submitted to someone else's unknown will, realizing with his frozen consciousness that there, in this mysterious ball, he would be better off than here, on the official bed, washed to the holes. It seemed like another moment, and the ball would forever engulf Igor, as an unexpected sharp pain pierced his brain, and the next second he saw the bright light of the lamps of the intensive care unit above him …
Fifteen minutes
After being discharged from the hospital, Igor was demobilized for health reasons and left for his native Tomsk. Two years later, his mother died, and the young man, raised without a father, was left alone with his chronic diseases. With a sin in half, getting a job in the workshop of the Society of Disabled People, Igor began to receive a small salary, which was barely enough to buy the medicines he needed so much. And one day, right at the workplace, Igor had a heart attack, and he was taken to the "ambulance" to the city cardiology.
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On the way, in an ambulance, Shakhvorostov experienced a state of clinical death for the third time. This time for Igor, everything happened much faster than in his previous deaths. The darkness that engulfed him began to quickly fill with a bright blinding light, which warmed the young man with soft warmth and irresistibly beckoned to him. Here, in a round dance, shiny balls began to whirl around him, which suddenly began to take on the forms of various strangers to him. Suddenly, in one of the balls, to his joy, he recognized the face of his mother who had died several years ago.
And soon he heard her soft voice, which insistently demanded from Igor that he stay in place. Then the mother's voice called the number "fifty" several times, after which the balls began to spin faster and faster, Igor again experienced an attack of pain, and then saw himself surrounded by doctors.
Later, when the young man was transferred from intensive care to a regular ward, he learned from the attending doctor that he had been in a state of clinical death for a record long time - almost fifteen minutes. The ambulance team, following instructions, had already stopped resuscitation when their patient's heart suddenly started beating again.
Haze of life
Igor underwent a thorough examination in the hospital, as the doctors feared that irreversible pathological changes could occur in the patient's brain due to long oxygen deprivation. However, the modern equipment for that time did not reveal any violations. And the day before discharge, an incident occurred with Igor, which stirred up memories of many years ago. Some time before that, a man who had suffered a myocardial infarction was placed in Igor's ward. His condition was quite satisfactory, and the recovering patient, like Igor, was prepared for discharge. That day, during the "quiet hour" Igor accidentally glanced at the patient who was sleeping on his bed and was stunned: from his chest, in the area of the solar plexus, a barely perceptible swirling trickle, similar to thatas if someone were slowly blowing up cigarette smoke.
Shakhvorostov recalled a similar whitish smoke that came from his own body during his clinical death, experienced while serving in the Soviet army, and realized that he was witnessing how life leaves the body of a ward neighbor. Igor began to call for help from doctors, however, when the medical staff ran into the ward, the heart patient was already dead …
From that day on, from time to time Igor became a witness of how, before his eyes, life left completely unfamiliar people in a similar way.
Once it happened to an elderly woman who was standing in front of him in line at a grocery store, another time - with a random passer-by walking down the sidewalk towards him, then with a drunken man lying in a muddy doorway. And every time Igor tried to help the unfortunate. Sometimes he managed to save a person before the last drop of life leaves his body, and sometimes, alas, not. It happened when, in 1996, in front of his eyes, a car hit a young woman crossing a busy road with a little girl. The girl's mother died on the spot. The child, by a happy coincidence, survived. When Igor found out that the girl, except for the deceased mother, had no relatives and she was threatened with the fate of ending up in an orphanage, he made a firm decision to adopt a child.
From the moment three-year-old Dasha settled in Shakhvorostov's modest apartment, Igor's life really took on meaning. He forgot about his problems, and his illnesses receded in front of his ardent love for a smart baby, who answered his stepfather with sincere affection.
Five years after this event, Igor again experienced clinical death, during which he saw the image of his deceased mother. The deceased asked her son not to go to the luminous ball and again called the number "fifty" …
Now Igor lives a rich life dedicated to only one cherished goal: to give his stepdaughter a good upbringing and education and, as they say, "to bring her to the people." He knows what the number fifty, repeated in the deaths he has experienced, means. It is at this age that he will die for the last time.
But before that time he still has a lot to do.