Here’s an interesting NDE reported in The Omega Project, a 1992 book by well-known NDE researcher Kenneth Ring. Ring introduces the story this way:
In 1952, a twenty-one-year-old US soldier serving in the Korean War was wounded and flown to Japan for surgery. Now a speech pathologist living in Connecticut, Harold Jaffe still remembers the details of his operation vividly.
What follows is Jaffe’s recollection, which appears to have been presented to Ring in writing. It is one of many NDEs that Ring accumulated specifically for this book. In a terse, elliptical style, Jaffe wrote:
Spinal column surgery… Ineffective spinal anesthesia in midsurgery required rapid use of gas/shots from a panic situation. I heard later that the combination “went green,” i.e. sour. I recall lapsing into unconsciousness (having been awake and alert during the first hour of surgery). I “sensed” my heart stopping — thought, “HEY, you guys are losing me.” The next moment I was “floating” against the canvas roof of the O.R. tent, looking down on “me” stretched out on the table, face down, still being operated on.
The surgeon was alerted to cardiac arrest; several people shouted at once. A heavy, muscular black Air Force sergeant rushed in on call. “I’m not clean, sir,” he said. “To hell with that, flip this man over!” He waited for a second for the surgeon to pack the wound, then fork-lifted me onto my back. I clearly “saw” an x-shaped scar on the top of the sergeant’s scalp — even though my vision without glasses is 20/400. The medical team frantically worked on my body to resuscitate me. I saw the anesthesiologist (female, lieutenant, Air Force) wiping tears, shaking her head, saying, “[expletives] he’s gone!” I “yelled” to her that I was still here, but she couldn’t hear me. (Now I recall that my “being” at the roof top had no form, no mouth — only consciousness, vivid, painless, unimpaired hearing and vision and thought.)
I felt myself being sucked back. Many days later I regained consciousness…. Weeks later I spoke of my experience to my surgeon, hoping he wouldn’t think I was crazy and declare me Section 8. Surprised that I could describe every detail of my “death” and [be] aware of the black corpsman’s x-shaped scar on his scalp, my doctor only shrugged and said, “Well, nothing surprises me anymore.” [pp. 99, 100]
A couple of things stood out for me in this account. First, it is written in a refreshingly matter-of-fact style by a well-educated person. Second, Jaffe’s vision without glasses is just as lousy as mine — 20/400. From experience I can say that a person with this degree of visual impairment cannot make out any details further than a few inches away. Third, the NDE is clearly remembered as having a strong visual component: looking down on the operating table, seeing the female anesthesiologist shaking her head and wiping away tears, and most of all, observing the sergeant with the distinctive scar on top of his head.
Of course, it is always possible to find weaknesses in any NDE account. The event took place in 1952 but was obviously reported to Ring much later — probably about four decades after the fact. I’m sure it would be impossible to verify the details at this late date. A critic could argue that Mr. Jaffe retained his sense of hearing even while unconscious and was thus able to hear the commotion around him; his mind, it could be claimed, constructed the appropriate images to go along with the sounds. And the scar? Someone could say that this detail is an embellishment, or that the patient had the opportunity to see this scar at some other time and unconsciously incorporated it into his fantasy.
Counting against all that is the fact that Mr. Jaffe’s experience is hardly unique, but follows a pattern of other veridical NDEs. It is easy to discount a single story in isolation, but when there are scores of documented cases, and probably hundreds of anecdotal cases, the skeptical argument becomes harder to swallow. There is also Mr. Jaffe’s insistence that he actually did see these events with a vision much clearer than his normal eyesight. As he put it, he was “only consciousness, vivid, painless, unimpaired hearing and vision and thought.”
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P.S. Incidentally, it was Ring who inserted the word “be” in square brackets in the last sentence of the excerpt. I’m not sure the word is necessary, and I think it may change the meaning slightly. The way I read it, Mr. Jaffe is saying that the surgeon was both surprised by the story and aware of the scar; his knowledge of the scar would have lent some credibility to the patient’s report.