The night I flat- lined due to AV heart block

[Alan McDougall]

The night my heart stopped and I flat-lined

On the 18th August 2011, I my heart stopped beating numerous times, at home and then in the Sunninghill Hospital (clinically death)

 

I had taken nap on that Thursday night, and a dear friend of mine, Tony was somehow moved to phoned late that night, a thing he had never done before, I woke up with heart going crazy almost stopping, my wife immediately called the for the ambulance and they got to my home in ten minute flat, the hospital is less than a half kilometer from my home and I was there in five minutes and went I got attention immediately.

 

Note! If my friend of some thirty five years,Tony , had not phone me, from the town of George in South Africa, to where I live in Johannesburg some thousand miles away, at the exact moment he did, I would never have woken up and would have died in my sleep. I am sure fate moved Tony that night to phone me that Thursday night, at the very unusual hour of about 9 pm. Tony never phones me so late at night and maybe he can explain what made him call me why he was moved to call me at that moment in time.

 

His phone call woke me up from a deep sleep from which I would simply died in my sleep, because I was unaware that in my sleeping state that my heart was going wild in my chest, stopping and starting in a life and death struggle and I was approaching real death..

 

My phone is right next to me by my bedside so even though I in a very distressed state, I was ably to pick it up and answer it to the best of my ability. My friend Tony could hear over the phone that there was something really wrong going on which me. He said over the phone “Alan you don’t sound right, are you OK?" I replied “No”!! “Tony something is very wrong” “you phone back a little later”. I put down the phone and could feel my heart actually starting and stopping in a most frightening way and I became deathly pale and started to sweat profusely. I did not realize at this stage know how very close to dying I was that night. It is very scary when I looked at wife or daughter, and saw them actually becoming dimmer and dimmer in my eyes, because my brain was being deprived of oxygen. It was then that I began then to move in and out of consciousness on the very edge of death.

 

I saw my daughter Desiree in the passage and called out weakly for her to tell my wife Denise, that I was dying or having a heart attack. I don’t not think she believed me, but after one look at me with my face pale and sweating body, she called the ambulance, which reached our complex in some ten minutes.

 

On resuscitation table due to third stage or total, AV heart block. I went through the whole drama of my heart stopping, flat- lining over and over again, adrenaline, atropine were injected directly into my heart and the shock paddles and chest depressions, used over and over again in a desperate effort to get my heart to beat again this was a real struggle of life or death.

 

I now entered a life threatening desperate state of AV heart block (Heart stopping and starting) I recall very little of what happened to me that night, because I had began to go in and out of consciousness. I only regained full consciousness the next morning in the intensive care ward and noticed a temporary heart pacemaker had been connected to my heart to keep me alive. I had to wait a day or two in hospital for Doctor Rodney King Cardiologist, to get my medical aid to agree to the fitting of a permanent heart pacemaker, under my skin in my chest wall. This pacemaker cost about sixty thousand South African Rand or about nine thousand American (USA) dollars at the then exchange rate.

 

The team of doctors and nursing assistants were desperately trying to get a needle into one of my veins. I have very poor veins and they are fairly deep under my skin and difficult to locate. Later back in the emergency care ward after I finally became fully conscious I noticed that both my arms wre4 very bruised and hands were full of needle pricks. I had no blood pressure at all and this also made it almost impossible to find a vein.

 

I heard them call for atropine and adrenaline, which the doctor told me they injected directly into my heart. When even this did not keep my heart beating as it should, they used electric paddles to shock my heart and get it beating as it should. On return to the emergency ward for intensive care I noticed both sides of my chest, ribs, or torso were very painful to touch as it hurt to breath for days after the event.

 

I only remembered vaguely what went on while on the resuscitation table during, those long three hours of life and death struggle. However, later I began to remember more and more about the strange things I saw while alternating between consciousness and seemly going elsewhere during the period of resuscitation by a team of doctors. each time my heart stopped and I went flat-line, I went somewhere else, not of this world and each time the emergency team of doctors got my heart to beat I came back.I kept going in and out of consciousness during the attempts at resuscitation.

 

I recall telling one of the doctors I was dying and they should let me go, it seemed to me I was about to enter a black void, I heard the doctor say to me. "No one dies on my table" maybe his words gave me hope to fight for my life. At this time I did not think of my family or wife or children, I was absorbed with my survival.

 

After three hours the on the resuscitation table the doctors installed a temporary pacemaker to maintain my pulse between 65/110 beats per/minute instead of the 5 to zero it had been beating/not beating most of the time on the resuscitation table.

 

My wife had to wait nearly the whole evening before one of the cardiologist came to her and said I would survive but it was a very close call, indeed and I was a lucky man

 

The doctor said if I had arrived hospital even five minutes later it would have been impossible to revive me. I am 73 years of age now and would not have minded if I had died then, but I suppose there must be some things left for me to do, because a whole lot of favorable coincidences made it possible for me to survive.

 

I really came as close to death that night as possible, without actually dying, and yet brought back by a great team of doctors, to live again and be with my family and friends a little longer I hope. In fact since the hear pacemaker was fitted I have felt much more healthy and maybe the heart irregularity was a long standing problem of which I was unaware.

 

Then each time doctors got my heart to beat I was drawn back to the earthly world and vaguely remember being on the table with people pricking me with needles all over, my arms and hands

 

I because I was continually being resuscitated by the medical team , I floated in and out of consciousness, into the Other-World and back to This-World until I was finally stabilized.

 

If I had any doubts about life after death I have none now, each time my heart stopped my soul or consciousness left my body and went into another existence, beyond physical life I believe..

 

When I was elsewhere on the other side, I saw a huge tree with a numerous books all around its trunk.

 

I tried to read what was on the covers I somehow knew that they contained all the answers to my questions I had posed during my life on earth as well as knowledge and mysteries of existence. “Was it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”?

 

There was only one very large book which I think consolidated all that was in all the smaller books. When I tried to lift the large book, it was too heavy to carry and I decided to leave it there under the tree and return later for it. Maybe when I finally die, I will go back to that beautiful tree and retrieve this book which I think might the "The book of Knowledge"

 

During the moments that I flat-lined, I sort of went through the back door of a colossal mansion and I saw numerous people all gathered to welcome me wherever I was. I think that some of my beloved passed over people were there. It seemed like a welcome home party, or a sort of wedding reception.

 

Although not in this particulates event, I thought about my beloved Dog Bully who had died fifty years prior and remembered the many dreams I had when I felt his loving doggy presence.

 

When on the other side of life I one saw a beautiful pulsating orb of golden light that I took for the essence of all that is good and pure because it emanated perfect peace and love. I had no tunnel and meeting of a being of light. Another moment I came to a large dark cave, with countless people sitting in the dark gloom. There was some enormous evil entity, so pitch black that it seemed like tar and did not reflect any light. When the Golden orb approached it, it shrank away from it. Was this dark entity Satan?

 

I now have a permanent pacemaker in my chest which should last ten years and despite the great shock I got that night, I am felling much better and very alive and well.

Note; the medical term for what happened to me is Total AV heat block.

 

I have no fear of death in fact if I had died then it would have been a nice way to die, maybe now I will hang on get very old and horrors become demented!

 

Alan McDougall

 

©Copyright Alan McDougall 2013

Edited January 20, 2014 by Alan McDougall