| Notes |
- Newspaper article probably in a Washington, Indiana newspaper or perhaps a San Diego, California paper.
LOCAL MAN EXPERIENCES 'LIFE AFTER DEATH' by Ron Arvin
"There is a great sense of peace, no fear, no confusion...I never felt so good.."
Thus have many persons described what happens during the near-death experience. They tell of a sense of floating, a feeling of release of all pain, a great white light, and some even extend their experiences into five stages.
Edwin Gines of Washington knows first hand of earlier phases of the experiences which researchers have found common in hundreds of individuals who have approached a "clinical" death.
Dr. Kenneth Ring, a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut, from interviews with 102 men and women, has concluded that the near-death phenomenon is, indeed, a new stage of growth, a spiritual rebirth that permits an individual a new zest and appreciation of life. Gines and his wife Fern will attest to that theory.
Gines' experience began Dec. 19, 1978 and in succeeding weeks he was to undergo not only the near-death moments but other traumatic conditions which were partially concealed from him by his family until after he was recovering from open heart surgery.
On a visit in San Diego, the Gines' daughter, Gaetana Kratzer, convinced her father he did not appear well and insisted he enter Mercy Hospital and Medical Center for tests. These tests determined that while he had experienced no pain, he had in fact suffered a serious heart attack.
On December 29 Ed was feeling great, preparing to leave the hospital, when suddenly severe pain hit his chest and arm. He reached for the call button and remembered hearing the nurse answer immediately.
It later developed the instant response by the nurse and the fortuitous proximity fo two doctors (who were planning to visit Gines before his dismissal) saved his life. Within a short time he had electric shock...back to life.
"I had a feeling of floating higher and higher," Gines recalls. "It was beautiful and the most peaceful situation you could imagine. I was so happy and peaceful.
When the electric shock treatment took effect, I kept asing the doctors...why?...why? They wanted to know what I meant. My answer was: Why did you bring me back? I was feeling so good, so peaceful, and now I'm back and feeling all this pain."
If one is to follow documented cases (i.e. Kubler-Ross On Dearh and Dying) Gines was through the first stages - a feeling of incredible peacefulness, something which has no equal; then the feeling of detachment, of floating out-of-the-body.
Some accounts have told of being like a spectator, watching nurses and doctors working over their bodies, as if from a balcony looking down,
Gines' experience was abruptly terminated by the electric shock treatment.
Other stages, described by some persons but not by Gines, include the peaceful movement into a tunnel-like opening; then a brilliant gold-yellow light, very warm but never hurtful to the eyes; and finally a distinct calling, not necessarily a voice, in which one is told "Your life is not finished...go back."
Linked with the distinct impressions of the rising higher and higher was the appearance when he regained consciousness of the the hospital chaplain, Sister Mary La Salellette, of the Sisters of Mercy, whose kindly face, enshrouded in white, became Ed's"guardian angel" from there on.
Two more heart attacks the same day kept Ed in the hospital's intensive care for 26 days, then he was released to be prepared for open heart surgery.
The family kept from him many of the details of a shooting at a school where his daughter Gaetana, a speech therapist, was teaching. A teen-ager killed the school principal and custodian, and wounded eight children. Ed did not know for weeks Gaetana had gone from her room to drag inside an injured child, and then huddled over the child in life-saving efforts. Later the door through which she had exited was found riddled with bullets.
Finally, after he was recovering from surgery, he had to return home early because of the death of his father.
The religious aspects of near-death experiences are also being examined by scholars who say one's own religious beliefs affect their interpretation of the near-death moments.
"It is a faith-strengthening thing. Certainly we do not want to die, but we do not fear death," Ed and Fern say.
This is the conclusion of many whom scholars have interviewed: They say what they have experienced will come again and their time has simply been postponed.
Researchers are looking into all facets, such as could these stories have been induced by anesthesia, but as in Gines case, anesthesia sometimes has not been used at the time of the experience. Ed and Fern have recalled their own experiences with anesthesia and Ed says the sensation is not the same as the experience in San Diego.
There is a picture of Ed and Fern Gines sitting on a couch sharing a newspaper. The caption reads: Ed and Fern Gines read a newspaper account of a shooting in a San Diego school where their daughter was teaching. Ed was in a San Diego hospital at the time and almost died of a heart attach, experiencing the first stage of "life after death."
|
1915 -
