Unidentified Corpse in Hospital (Image: Getty Images)
A man whose heart stopped for seven minutes has revealed his extraordinary experience “on the other side” before medics successfully revived him.
The astronomer explained how he attended hospital complaining of breathlessness, only to be diagnosed with a “bad lung haemorrhage”.
Writing in response to a Reddit thread titled ‘Redditors who have ‘died’ and come back to life, what did you see?’, he described losing such significant amounts of blood that his heart had nothing remaining to circulate, triggering cardiac arrest. Medical staff declared a “code blue” and battled for seven minutes to restart his heart.
Throughout this period, he sustained a stroke due to oxygen deprivation to his brain. He subsequently regained consciousness while intubated and remained only partially aware for two days before fully coming round and enquiring: “What happened?”
Yet while medical professionals fought desperately to preserve his life, he maintains he witnessed an unusual sequence of visions – featuring three oval-shaped ellipses floating in a black void.
Three oval ellipses
The man reported seeing three ellipses, appearing individually, seemingly hovering in total darkness. In his description, he noted they were all positioned vertically, as if hanging from a thread, despite no visible means of suspension.
Each possessed depth and dimension, comparable to a ring. He stated the first ellipse seemed to display mountains, streams, forests and clouds across both its interior and exterior surfaces.
Initially, he found the sight stunning, but explained the hues slowly started to shift, adopting a yellowish cast before disappearing entirely.
This was subsequently replaced by a second ellipse, which seemed to be a ring of red-hot iron. The astronomer said it was so hot that fragments of iron appeared to gradually break away from it.
He also claimed he could detect the scent of iron as the ring progressively disintegrated and cooled into darkness.
A smell of iron
The man subsequently mentioned the unusual odour to a nurse, thinking he might have somehow been detecting his environment while unconscious. According to his recollection, the nurse informed him that blood possesses a distinctive scent.
He said: “I now take it that this is when I was in cardiac arrest.”
Abruptly, the scene illuminated and a third ellipse emerged, this time adorned with magnificent clouds in pale pink and blue, reminiscent of a remarkable sunrise or sunset.
The man says he did not see a bright light (stock)
He believes this occurred as his heart resumed beating.
He added: “When I regained consciousness, those three ellipses remained firmly fixed in my memory. When I was told days later about my cardiac arrest and stroke, it all began to make sense to me.”
‘I figured it out’
The astronomer suspects his daily routine may have shaped what he encountered while near death. He clarified that he had been examining Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova and attempting to comprehend how Kepler determined that planetary orbits were ellipses rather than circles.
The idea had seemingly occupied his thoughts for weeks prior to his haemorrhage.
He explained: “[I have been] trying to understand how Kepler figured out that the orbits of the planets are ellipses and not circles.
“It had been on my mind for weeks, and when I haemorrhaged, my dying brain latched onto that shape.”
He reckons the initial and concluding ellipses symbolised what mattered most to him, encompassing the planet’s magnificence, nature and the heavens above.
He understood the yellowing of the opening ellipse as mirroring his “dying brain”, while the second signified his brain’s processing of the scent of blood.
The closing ellipse, he maintains, emerged as he started breathing again and regaining consciousness.
No tunnel, no light or deceased family
In a particularly striking aspect of his testimony, the man revealed he didn’t encounter many phenomena typically linked with near-death experiences.
There was no tunnel of light and no familiar deceased relatives waiting to greet him.
He stated: “That’s all I saw. No tunnel of light or happy deceased family members welcoming me.
“I think that dreaming, dying reflects what happens to be most accessible in your mind during that time. Your mind tells you a story about it.”
He described feeling no fear throughout the ordeal, instead positioning himself as a “dispassionate observer”.
Remarkably, he maintains the sole enduring consequence of his seven-minute cardiac arrest was a marginally reduced capacity for short-term memory.
‘I learned something from it’
Despite the terrifying circumstances surrounding his cardiac arrest, the individual revealed the experience fundamentally altered his perspective on mortality.
He maintains he no longer harbours any fear of death itself, though he acknowledges apprehension about the pain and distress that may precede it.
He said: “I learned something from all of this. I’m sure I was a horrific sight to anyone outside, covered with blood as doctors crowded around me trying to pull me back to life.
“But inside, all was calm. No pain, no discomfort, no worries.
“Accidents and disease may be terribly painful, but dying is easy. I’m not scared of dying, not in the least. Afraid of what comes before, sure, but nature makes dying easy.”