Meeting death
We talked with a doctor, a psychiatrist who, in a state of clinical death, saw the Creator, and he is sure that he was given to see the afterlife. Dr. George Ritchie is a psychiatrist in Charlottesville, Virginia. What he said makes an impression. This happened in 1943 and he wrote it down in detail.
However, Dr. Ritchie's account contains virtually every significant element of the near-death experience recorded by various scientists, and it was Dr. Ritchie's experience that prompted Raymond Moody to begin his research. Dr. Ritchie's clinical death is attested in the archives of the military hospital. His experience has a deeply religious connotation, which influenced his life and the lives of the people to whom he lectured.
1943, early December - At the military hospital in Camp Barkley, Texas, George Ritchie was recovering from a serious lung disease. He really wanted to get out of the hospital as soon as possible so that he could attend the Faculty of Medicine in Richmond as a military medical trainee. In the early morning of December 20, his temperature suddenly rose, he began to delirium and fainted.
“When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying in a small room where I had never been before. A dim light was on. For some time I lay, trying to understand where I was. Suddenly, I just jumped. Train! I missed the train to Richmond!
I jumped out of bed and looked around for clothes. The headboard was empty. I stopped and looked around. Someone was lying on the bed I had just got up from. In the faint light, I walked closer. It was a dead man. Saggy jaw, terrible gray skin. And then I saw the ring, the ring of the Phi-Gama Delta Society, which I had been wearing for two years."
Frightened, but not quite realizing that the lying body was his, Ritchie ran out into the corridor expecting to call the orderly, but found that his voice was not heard. "The orderly did not pay any attention to my words, and after a second he walked exactly where I was, as if I were not there." Ritchie walked through the closed door - "like a ghost" - and found himself "flying" to Richmond, driven by the urge to be in medical school.
“Suddenly it became clear to me: in some incomprehensible way, my body lost its density. I also began to realize that the body on the bed belongs to me, incredibly separated from me, that I need to return and connect with it as soon as possible. Finding the base and the hospital was not difficult. I think I came back almost at the moment I thought about it."
Rushing from room to room, peering at the sleeping soldiers, Ritchie frantically searched for his body along the familiar ring.
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“Eventually I got to a small room lit by a single dim light bulb. The person on his back was completely covered with a sheet, but his hands remained outside. There was a ring on the left. I tried to pull the sheet back, but I could not grab it. Suddenly the thought came to me: "This is death."
At that moment, Ritchie finally realized that he was dead. It amazed him - his dreams of going to medical school collapsed. Suddenly, something caught Ritchie's attention.
“The room began to fill with light. I say light, but there are no words in our language to describe this amazing radiance. I have to try to find the words, but because it was an incomprehensible phenomenon, like everything that happened, I am from that time under its constant influence.
The light that appeared in the room was Christ: I realized this because I had the thought: "You are before the Son of God." I called it light because the room was filled, permeated, illuminated with the most complete compassion I had ever felt. There was such calmness and joy that I wanted to stay forever and gaze without stopping."
All of Ritchie's childhood passed before him, and the light asked: "What have you done for your stay on Earth?" Ritchie stuttered and stuttered, trying to explain that he was too young to do anything meaningful, and the light gently objected, "You can't be too young." And here the feeling of guilt in Ritchie receded, overshadowed by a new vision that opened up to him, so extraordinary that, reading his description, one should remember - this is said by an intelligent, experienced psychiatrist who has been analyzing the differences between illusion and reality all his life.
“A new wave of light flooded the room, and we suddenly found ourselves in another world. Or rather, I felt a completely different world, which was in the same space. I followed Christ through ordinary streets in the countryside, where people were crowded. There were people with the saddest faces I could ever see. I saw officials who walked the corridors of the institutions where they worked earlier, trying in vain to get someone's attention. I saw a mother following her 6-year-old son, teaching, warning him. He didn't seem to hear her.
Suddenly I remembered that I had been heading for Richmond all night. Perhaps it was the same as with these people? Probably, their minds and hearts are overwhelmed with earthly problems, and now, having left earthly life, they just cannot get rid of them? I wondered if this was hell. Worrying when you are completely powerless can actually be hell.
I was allowed to look into two more worlds that night I cannot say “spiritual worlds”, they were very real, too solid. The second world, like the first, fit in the same space, but was completely different. In it, everyone was absorbed not by earthly problems, but - I cannot find a better word - by the truth.
I have seen sculptors and philosophers, composers and inventors. There were libraries and laboratories containing all kinds of scientific achievements.
I just glanced at the last world. I saw the city, but the city, if it is possible to suppose, was created from light. At that time, I did not read the Book of Revelation or publications on life after death. It seemed that the houses, walls, streets of the city were emitting light, and the creatures walking on it glowed as brightly as the One who was standing next to me”.
The next moment Ritchie found himself back in the military hospital, on the bed, in his body. It took several weeks before he was able to walk around the hospital, and while he was lying, he constantly wanted to look at his medical history. When he was able to sneak in and look unnoticed, he saw a recording in it: Private George Ritchie, death occurred on December 20, 1943, bilateral pneumonia. Dr. Ritchie told us:
“Later I spoke with the doctor who signed the death report. He said that he was quite sure that I was dead when he examined me. However, after 9 minutes. the soldier who had to transport me to the morgue ran up to him and said that I seemed to be alive. The doctor gave me an adrenaline shot straight into my heart muscle. My return to life, he said, without disturbing the brain or any other damage, is the most incomprehensible event in his life."
The incident had a profound effect on Ritchie. He not only graduated from medical school and became a psychiatrist, but also a priest of his church. Some time ago, Dr. Ritchie was asked to share his experience with a group of doctors at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
To find out if there were any details hidden in the subconscious of Dr. Ritchie, another psychiatrist hypnotized him, returning him to the moment when he met death. Suddenly the veins in Dr. Ritchie's neck swelled, blood rushed to his face, the pressure jumped, he had heart failure as he lived through his death again. The psychiatrist immediately brought him out of hypnosis.
It became clear that Dr. Ritchie's death was so deeply engraved in his brain that, under hypnosis, he was able to repeat it completely - psychologically and physically. This fact has forced many doctors in the future to resort with caution to experiments with the brains of people who have experienced clinical death.
Prolonged clinical death
One can imagine that people who have experienced the longest clinical death, the one that occurs as a result of hypothermia, and those who drowned in cold water, harbor stories that never become known.
With hypothermia, hypothermia, there are the most dramatic returns "from the other side." When freezing, the body temperature drops by 8-12 ° C and a person can stay for hours in a state of clinical death and return to life without disturbing brain activity. The two longest recorded deaths are Jean Jobbone of Canada, 21, who was dead for four hours, and Edward Ted Milligan, also Canadian, 16, who was dead for about 2 hours.
Each of these cases is a miracle in medicine.
Early in the morning of January 8th in Winnipeg, Jean Jobbone was returning home from a party in the snow. Still slightly dizzy from the pleasant evening, she walked down the narrow street towards William Avenue. At 7 in the morning, Nestor Raznak, who was taking out the trash before heading to work, came across Jean's body. Due to an incorrect report, the police arrived only at 8.15. To warm Jin, Raznak wrapped her in a rug. The police found Jin alive, she moaned.
But when she was taken to the Central Hospital, her heart was no longer beating. Body temperature was lower than usual by almost 11 degrees 26.3 ° С. Jin had no heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing, and her pupils were dilated to the limit. The wine she drank at the party helped to cool the body, as the alcohol dilated the blood vessels.
For four hours, 7 doctors, 10 nurses and several nurses worked without rest to bring her back to life. Initially, the team tried shallow cardiac massage, pressing on the chest and squeezing the heart. A manual ventilation tube was inserted into Jean's windpipe with bellows. For 2 hours, they unsuccessfully tried to raise her body temperature - this is a necessary procedure before the possible onset of a heartbeat.
They covered her with hot towels and heated blankets, inserted a tube into her stomach and passed warm saline through it. Gradually, the girl's body temperature rose by 5 ° C. It took over an hour to make my heart beat. After the body temperature had risen enough, a defibrillator was used to force the heart to beat with an electric shock.
At 11 o'clock in the morning, Jean regained consciousness, and when the weakness passed, she was able to speak. One of the team's doctors, who had an idea of the afterlife, what people see in a state of near-death, asked Jean questions, but she probably had regressive memory loss, covering the period before the party got ready. Dr. Gerald Bristow, of the intensive care team, told us that Jean's brain had been completely without oxygen for half an hour, but she had no brain abnormalities; low body temperature slowed down metabolism and the brain needed less oxygen. This is probably what led to the amnesia.
The doctors we spoke to believe that somewhere deep in Jean's memory are the events of the party and recall. They think that if these events could be identified, the longest stay in a state of clinical death could be recreated. For some reason, Jean did not show any inclination to cooperate, she did not want to discuss what happened with the doctors.
Some doctors believe that hypnotic effects can be dangerous for Jean, because her death was so traumatic in emotional and psychological terms. Others hold the view that a gradual immersion in the past under the guidance of a doctor could be more effective. Jean herself did not want to remember and finally resigned herself to her amnesia. Maybe the reason is that she doesn't want to remember something?
On the contrary, Ted Milligan, another victim of hypothermia, wanted to be hypnotized. Morning, January 31, 1976 - Ted and the other students at St. John Cathedral School in Selkirk take part in a compulsory 5-hour hike over a 25-mile distance. It was a warm day and the young people were dressed lightly. At about 4 pm, 3 hours after the start of the hike, the temperature suddenly dropped to -15 ° C and a strong wind blew out. The guys walked in groups of 4; Ted became lethargic and stumbled. His comrades thought he was simply tired, but about a mile and a half from school he lost consciousness.
One of the young men stayed beside him, the other two ran forward to find the snowmobile and call an ambulance. Meanwhile, 4 people from the group that followed them carried him for half a mile. Snowmobiles appeared, and Dr. Gerald Bristow, the doctor who brought Ted back to life, claimed that it took an hour and a half to get to school.
At school, Ted was stripped and put under blankets, two young men lay down next to him, trying to warm him up. He was unconscious. The school nurse was the first to check Ted's pulse, she realized he was dead. She began to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the others began to massage his heart. This lasted until the ambulance arrived.
Selkirk Hospital recorded Ted's body temperature on admission: 25 ° C (77 ° F). Normal body temperature is 37 ° C or 98.6 ° F. 5 doctors and 10 nurses worked for 2 hours before Ted's heart beat again. He was covered with hot towels, due to which he received minor burns on his thighs, they gave him warm enemas, and drugs were injected directly into his heart. Oxygen was supplied to him through a tube inserted into his windpipe.
Gradually, his body temperature returned to normal, and although his heart did not beat for more than an hour and a half, and his brain did not receive oxygen at all for 15 minutes, he has no violations of higher nervous activity. However, Ted suffered from memory loss: he could not remember what happened after their group went on a hike, or what happened a few hours after he regained consciousness.
Memory slowly returns to Ted. When we talked to him in the spring of 1977, he talked about the beginning of his campaign and about some of the details of his stay in intensive care after the "revival." Dr. Bristow believes that deep in the subconscious lurks a vivid account of the encounter with death. Ted told us that he wanted to be hypnotized to make the story accessible, and the parents gave their consent, but before putting Ted at such a risk, the doctors decided to wait to see if the young man's memory would recover over time. Here's what Ted said.
“When I woke up, I learned that my heart had not been beating for a record long time, that I was frozen to death. I decided it was a lie. When they convinced me, I was shocked. Why me? - I asked a question. I was already somewhat religious then. We all attend Anglican Sunday night sermons at our school. Facing death in a state of clinical death made me more religious. If I have to die again, I would rather freeze. I felt neither pain nor agony - nothing at all."
A. Landsberg