Photo Source: NASA

Years ago, before some of the great advances in medicine, it was hard to be sure if somebody was actually dead. Some doctors would take a mirror and put it under the nose of a person to see if it fogged up. If it looked like the person was not breathing and the mirror didn't fog up, then the person was usually declared dead. This method worked most of the time, but it certainly was not 100% accurate. Unfortunately this led to some people being buried while they was still alive. Stories were written about people who found themselves in this situation. Edgar Allan Poe wrote one of the most famous stories on this topic, it was the Fall of the House of Usher and dealt with a person that was very worried about being buried alive.To allay his fears, he had a Mausoleum constructed with a bell on it and a rope leading down to a hole in a coffin. The idea was that if he was still alive and revived, he would pull the rope from inside the coffin which would ring the bell and someone would come to get him. In the story the man was pronounced dead and woke up in the coffin and pulled the rope, only to have it break. I won't go into the rest of the story, because I just wanted to illustrate this one point, the point being that people were actually scared of being buried alive years ago. We no longer have that worry since medicine has advanced so much that cases like this are now extremely rare. Also embalming was introduced to prevent this from ever happening again.

While people are no longer being buried alive in this country, there are some very rare occasions where they have been pronounced dead and yet have come back. A diabetic woman went into a coma. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital. On the way there the medics did everything humanly possible to revive her. They were not able to and pronounced her dead before they reached the hospital. She had no detectable heartbeat, no pulse and didn't seem to be breathing. When they got to the hospital, the doctors confirmed that she was dead. As would all hospitals, the body sat for a while on a gurney until it could be moved to the morgue. Finally an orderly came along to transport the body. On the way to the morgue he heard a sound coming from the body bag. The woman no longer seemed to be dead and had begun to revive. As with many of these cases, the woman reported seeing deceased family members. She said that she was told it was not time yet and she should go back. We have no way of verifying experiences such as this one, but they seem to be quite common in persons that come back from the brink. It turned out that the woman was legally dead for about 30 minutes. Another thing that is sometimes reported, is that time passes differently for those that are declared dead and revive. They state that it just seemed like seconds for them even when it is more like hours. This in itself is not very unusual. We all experienced the same affect when we are put under anesthesia or even when we go to sleep. The brain either does not recognize the passing of time in the sleep state or the unconscious state, or it forgets it.

One story that I read was about a young girl reviving after being declared dead. It was so heinous that I don't know if I should even repeat it. Apparently an 18-year-old girl was declared dead in Romanian and her body was sent to the local morgue. What makes this story so terrible is the way that she revived. It seems she woke up from a death-like sleep while being raped by the attendant. No, the attendant did not know she was alive. Man there are all kinds of sick people in this world and this just goes to prove it. If it were up to me, this guy would have been thrown into a mental institution.

A man in Egypt suddenly fell into a coma .He was examined by a doctor who could not discern any signs of life and he was declared dead. His body was placed in a coffin and the coffin was brought to a refrigerated morgue, where it was placed in storage . The man's body laid in the refrigerator for over 12 hours. Surely you would think that if he wasn't dead before he was put into the refrigerator, that he certainly would be dead after the 12 hours. Well this wasn't the case, because he woke up, climbed out of the coffin and began pounding on the door. Luckily there were several employees on the other side and one of them came to his aid. The story has an ironic twist to it. It goes on to state that when the door was opened and the man was seen standing there, one of the employees dropped dead from a heart attack and eventually his body was placed in the exact coffin that the man had climbed out of.

One of our brave soldiers in Iraq was standing guard duty. He was positioned atop a high tower and it was his job to look for any suspicious movement. He was able to see quite a distance from his perch. While he was performing his duties, a shot rang out. There was a sniper out there somewhere and he had shot this soldier in the head. The soldier was wearing a protective Kevlar helmet, but this did not stop the bullet, it merely slowed it down. The bullet penetrated the soldier's skull. His comrades rushed to help him and began to carry him down, when another shot rang out and another bullet hit him. He died right then and there. He had actually stopped breathing for several minutes when medical personnel ran to his assistance and some how they brought him back from the dead. After spending many months recuperating from his injury and having a near death experience, the soldier went back to join his unit. They say that people who have had near death experiences no longer are scared to die. I don't know if this is the case here, but when asked why he wanted to go back, he said he just wanted to rejoin his unit.

Photo Source: Stock.xching

An 18-year-old girl talked about her near death experience. She was out for a ride in her boyfriend's convertible when the car went out of control and ran into a telephone pole. She said that the next thing she remembered is standing outside of the car, without any pain and looking at the car that contained her lifeless body. She could see her bloodied boyfriend trying to wake her up. She said she remembers yelling to her boyfriend to stop slapping her, because she was already awake. The girl stated that she felt extremely at ease and that the only thing that bothered her was that she was confused. The next thing she remembers that happened right after that, was that she was sitting next to him in the car and had bolted upright. Had the girl died and come back? Who knows, but it certainly seems so, doesn't it?

Another lady, stated that she died after hemorrhaging for over a month. She was operated on to solve this problem, but the operation didn't help. She began to hemorrhage again in her hospital room. She could feel herself slipping away. At that point she said she prayed to God that she be allowed to raise her child. The doctors and nurses worked frantically on her, then she heard those words," hurry we're losing her". At that point she felt her heart stop and she floated to the top of the room. She could see her bed and she could see everyone and hear everything that was going on. She could see that the doctors were trying to place a needle into her neck. A feeling of complete love came over her. She remembers being told things, but no longer remembers what they were. She also remembers the fact that she changed her mind about wanting to stay on earth. Then she felt herself being slammed back into her body and she could hear the doctors and nurses telling her that she was now okay.

The eternal question is what happens to us after we die? Some say that death means nothingness. Others believe that death is only the beginning of a journey, that we are reborn many times into different bodies until we get things right. Then there is the majority of mankind, that believes that after death we are judged for our actions on earth and treated accordingly. I like to think of myself as one of those. After all, if people believed that death means nothingness, what is the sense of being good? Maybe that is the problem with some of the people in this world right now? Those that believe in reincarnation cite the different cases where people have remembered past lives and those that believe we go to our reward when we die, have many near-death experiences to go by. One thing is for sure, bodies contain energy and energy never dies