10 Real Life Near-Death Experiences in the Press & Media: Global Evidence of the Near-Death (4 page)

‘Do for this life as if you live forever, do for the afterlife as if you die tomorrow.’
- Ali ibn Abi Talib

This is the incredible story of Amanda Cable who, during emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, had a near-death experience wherein she believes that her five year old daughter returned her to life.  Such was the interest about this case at the time that in November 2012 The Daily Mail ran an article about it.

Amanda is a mother of three and at the time of this pregnancy she had twin boys of two years old, namely Archie and Charlie, and a daughter of five years old called Ruby.  Together with her photographer husband Ray, they were all living in Blackheath, South East London. 

But on Thursday 5 September 2003 this happy and content family unit was unexpectedly put in jeopardy when Amanda was rushed to hospital and ended up fighting for her life in the operating theatre. 

It was a few days earlier on Sunday 1
st
September, as Ruby was due to start at her local prep school the following Thursday, that the school put on a welcome picnic for her class and she and the rest of her family attended.  They all had a lovely time with Ruby playing ‘chase’ with her new classmates.  Life felt so sweet.

Although at the time Amanda didn’t dwell too much on it, and it was only after learning that she had conceived an ectopic pregnancy that she began to think about it, she had a dream that night concerning the picnic that afternoon.  In the dream was a fourth child, another little boy.  Amanda was playing ‘chase’ with this child but as he turned and laughed his face seemed to be a mixture of Ruby, Archie & Charlie – it looked like he could have been their brother!  She woke up that morning drenched in sweat.

By late morning Amanda had begun to experience a nagging pain in her side and because she initially thought it was a stomach bug, something the rest of her family had suffered from, she didn’t think too much of it.  However, as the next couple of days went by the pain got more and more pronounced until Amanda was in so much discomfort that she called her GP out for a home visit.  He was so concerned that he called an ambulance and Amanda was taken to the local hospital where her husband hurriedly joined her.

After some tests confirmed that Amanda was in the early stages of an unviable pregnancy the doctors decided that she should spend the night at the hospital to await surgery the next day.  ‘Ectopic’ means out of place and in Amanda’s case the fertilized egg was trying to develop in the fallopian tubes, instead of in the womb.  If left for too long, such a diagnosis can endanger the mother’s life – indeed a classical ectopic pregnancy cannot develop into a live birth.

Amanda was in shock at the news and began to replay the dream she had experienced only a few days earlier when she was playing so happily with that little boy who seemed so similar to her own children.  Could this have been the baby she had not realized she was expecting?

During the early hours of the morning of Thursday 5
th
September – the day in fact that Ruby was due to start her first day at school - Amanda awoke from a restless sleep in the ward and rang the bell by her bed as she had begun to feel very ill indeed.  All of a sudden she became aware of a doctor slapping her face telling her that she was not to go back to sleep and that she should stay awake.  She remembered medical staff running around and the words, ‘She’s tachycardic….she’s haemorrhaging…..get her to theatre now!’  It was life or death.

In theatre Amanda needed a transfusion as she was losing so much blood, her veins were collapsing and she was finding it difficult to breathe.  The medical team couldn’t get the blood in fast enough.  Her pulse stopped.  She remembered hearing a lot of swearing and a doctor shouting, ‘There’s no pulse.  I can’t get an output.  Can anyone find an output?’  She recalled the terror she felt at this point and wondered how many seconds of life she might have left.

Her thoughts went to her family and she prepared to say goodbye to them all – something which today she says she still finds very hard to think about.  She then felt an agonising pain in her stomach and was gazing up at the operating light above her when she heard a
whoosh
and to her surprise found herself being taken up by the light.  All of a sudden there she was in a tunnel of startling whiteness, so brilliant in fact that she found it impossible to distinguish the floor from the walls.  She was sure she was now dead but surprisingly felt very relaxed about it all. 

Her pain and terror had disappeared, she felt weightless but totally clear in her mind and with a calm acceptance she knew that she had to join her loved ones who were already on the other side. 

As she contemplated this acceptance, in the far distance of the tunnel Amanda saw a child standing and as she walked easily towards this figure, she realised that the girl was dressed in red and grey.  As the figure turned, she recognized her own daughter - Ruby! 

Ruby was wearing her new school clothes – Amanda had actually never seen Ruby try her uniform on before as by the time everything had arrived she was already quite ill - and had her hair in bunches (she had always liked wearing her hair down and so had never let her hair be put up in this way).

‘Come on mummy, we’ll be late for school,’ Ruby exclaimed urgently and together they moved along the corridor.  All of a sudden the giant wrought iron gates of the school appeared, as if from nowhere, blocking their path.  Ruby cajoled Amanda further and told her that they needed to hurry as otherwise they would be late for class.  She was insistent.  Ruby opened the gates and for a long moment Amanda considered whether she should continue.  She did and was rewarded with a triumphant smile from her daughter. 

As Ruby shut the doors behind her Amanda felt her whole body jump – she has since explained that this was probably at the time when the defibrillator pads were being used on her heart to shock it back into action and when her pulse would have begun again.

She woke up in intensive care still very poorly and once more in pain from her stomach where there was now a closed incision.  The hospital were still exceedingly worried about her prognosis – and told her so, leaving her in no doubt whatsoever as to the severity of her condition - but upon asking her to consider once more getting her next-of-kin to the hospital, Amanda refused permission.  She was determined that her husband took Ruby to her first day at prep school.  Because of Amanda’s insistence, Ray followed her wishes and Ruby, in blissful ignorance of her mother’s condition, went off to school with her daddy at her side.  Ray then rushed to his wife’s bedside taking with him a photograph of Ruby proudly wearing her new school uniform and …… unbelievably …… with her hair in bunches!

Amanda was amazed at the photograph – she looked exactly as she had appeared to her mum in the white tunnel – proudly wearing her new school uniform and with her hair in BUNCHES!  Ray was as shocked when Amanda told him about her tunnel experience as she herself was.  Like his wife, he began to ponder how it was possible that she had known that Ruby had gone to school with her hair in bunches when at the time she had been lying in hospital fighting for her life.  Somehow, and in some way, Ruby had saved her mother’s life.  Could it have been her love of Ruby that pulled Amanda back from the brink on that day or, somehow, could it have been Ruby herself?

Amanda has stated that having never been religious and having always dismissed stories of NDEs, she has struggled to come to terms with her own near-death experience.  Interestingly, like so many other people who have had such experiences, she has since found that she is no longer fearful of death itself, which she had been throughout her life, nor is she held back from living a full and joyful life. 

She has however found that her priorities in life have changed in many ways. Indeed, although her family had always been very important to her, they have since taken on an even greater significance.  Since her brush with death Amanda has rearranged her life so that she can spend much more time with them.  In fact, not surprisingly, one of her main priorities is making sure she is always on hand to do the school run!

‘To die, to sleep -
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub,
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...’

- William Shakespeare -
Hamlet

A fairly recent, but very well known, NDE case involved a young boy who was not quite four years old at the time of the incident, namely one Colton Burpo. 

Colton is the son of a Christian pastor and he lives with his parents and two siblings in Imperial, Nebraska.  Having been born on the 19 May 1999 he is now thirteen years old.  His story
Heaven is for Real
was published in late 2010 and was written by Colton’s father, the Rev Todd Burpo, and co-written by Lynn Vincent.  In 2011 for fifty-nine non consecutive weeks it made The New York Times Best Seller List for
Non-Fiction
and has sold millions of copies since its publication as it captured the imagination of America, seemingly regardless of religious belief.

Colton’s journey began in March 2003 when he was rushed to the Great Plains Regional Medical Centre where he immediately had emergency surgery for a burst appendix, the poison from which had been leaking into his body for over five days.  Due to the tardiness of a correct diagnosis, by the time he was wheeled into surgery his parents, Todd and Sonja, were told that he had little chance of survival.  As Todd had already seen ‘the shadow of death’ on his son’s face, a look Todd had often come across as he helped to care for his parishioners in their final days of life, words cannot fully describe how distraught he and Sonja were feeling. 

What came next is the incredible story of Colton’s near-death experience where he spoke about things after the event, which he could not have possibly known before.

Although when he came round after the surgery some two hours later Colton had told his father that he had almost died, it was only in the months that followed that he began to speak about what he
saw
when he was so ill.

Colton is convinced that whilst undergoing the surgery he went to heaven ‘for three minutes’ and amongst many other revelations, met Jesus and John the Baptist.  We must remember that Colton at this time was only 3 years old and therefore would not have had much concept of time so his ‘three minutes’ could well have been three hours!  However, a religious person might well draw a parallel with the bible here when it says that with the Lord, ‘a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.’ 

He has spoken of angels singing to him
Jesus Loves Me
and
Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho
and that in the singing of these hymns he felt less scared, as the music was a comfort to him.  He has said he encountered a rainbow-hued horse, God the father and the Holy Spirit and all in heaven had wings, including Colton himself, although his were smaller.

Understandably at first the Burpos didn’t know what to make of Colton’s reminiscing.  He was but a four year old little boy – how could he have suddenly come up with this story?  There were three things however that finally convinced Todd and Sonja that their son had indeed visited heaven at some point during his operation.

Firstly, as Colton was wheeled off to surgery, Todd locked himself in a room in the hospital simultaneously both praying and berating God.  Nobody, Todd says, not even Sonja, knew of his whereabouts at that time.  Colton has since told his parents that while Dr O’Holleran was working on him in surgery and whilst he was with Jesus he saw his father praying and his mother talking on the phone, both of which proved totally accurate.  When questioned as to how he knew what they were both doing at the time, Colton replied matter-of-factly:

‘…Because I could see you.  I went up out of my body and I was looking down and I could see the doctor working on my body.  And I saw you and mommy.  You were in a little room by yourself, praying; and mommy was in a different room, and she was praying and talking on the phone.’

How could he have possibly known this?

Secondly, Colton says that he met his great-grandfather, Pop, in heaven.  In July 1976 at the age of sixty-one, his great-grandfather died unexpectedly, decades before Colton had been born. 

Colton had already explained to his parents that people in heaven are younger than they are in this life.  Interestingly, as an aside, this is similar to what a lot of Muslims believe who say that all inhabitants of heaven will be around 32 or 33 years of age. 

We are told that after his near-death experience Colton was shown a photograph of his great-grandfather which was taken when Pop was nearer the end of his life than the beginning, but Colton did not recognize him as being his relative.  Colton had exclaimed:

‘Nobody is old in heaven, and nobody wears glasses!’

Some while later his father then showed him a photograph of Pop at a much younger age – a photograph in fact that Todd himself had never seen as he had, in view of Colton not recognizing Pop from the photograph he possessed, subsequently asked his mother to find a picture of his grandfather when he was a younger man.  His mother had finally tracked one down of Pop at the age of twenty-nine and sent it to Todd in the post.  When Colton saw this black & white photograph he immediately recognized his great-grandfather.  How could he have recognized his great-grandfather unless he had already seen him?  And looking so young!

Thirdly, at the time of his NDE Colton only had one sibling, a sister called Cassie.  He began to insist that in actual fact this was not correct and that he had two sisters.  He said to his mother:

‘I have two sisters.  You had a baby die in your tummy, didn’t you?’

Sonja asked him who had told Colton that she had lost a baby and he replied:

‘She did, mommy.  She said she died in your tummy.’ 

Sonja had unfortunately miscarried the baby at around two months gestation in the summer of 1998 and had not been aware of the sex of the child.  Colton had just in a matter of fact way told his parents that the baby was a girl and that God had adopted her!  Both Sonja and Todd were astounded!  When asked what the girl’s name was, Colton had replied:

‘She doesn’t have a name.  You guys didn’t name her.’ 

This was actually quite true.  Although they had picked out a boy’s name - Colton - should the baby be male, they could not agree on a name should the baby be female. 

Sonja and Todd were flabbergasted by their son’s revelations about the baby that they had lost.  At no time had they ever mentioned this loss to Colton.  Indeed, the fact that he said that he had met her and, indeed, that the baby was a girl was of great comfort to them both.  He was even able to describe that she looked like Cassie, his sister, and that she had dark hair – like his mum!

I will end this story on Colton’s recollection of Jesus.  A young Lithuanian girl called Akiane Kramarik, who says she has
visions of heaven and Christ
, has an extraordinary talent for painting what she sees and was an internationally recognized prodigy of both art and poetry at a very young age.  Over the months that followed Colton’s NDE, dozens of pictures of Christ had been shown to him and on each occasion he would say that the picture was inaccurate.  So when he was then shown a depiction of Christ which Akiane had actually painted, Todd asked him:

‘What’s wrong with this one, Colton?’

To which Colton replied:

‘Dad, that one’s right.’