{"id":9908,"date":"2016-06-02T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T12:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Pat%20Johns"},"modified":"2018-01-22T19:12:56","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T19:12:56","slug":"and-then-there-was-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission-old\/and-then-there-was-light\/","title":{"rendered":"And then there was light"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"alignright\" style=\"padding-left:2em;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/172611874?title=0&#038;byline=0&#038;portrait=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Pat Johnson vividly recalls his near-death experience after a boating accident on the Blanco River nearly six years ago. He speaks of that day in reverential tones, of being \u201cin the presence of God\u201d and \u201cat the edge of heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And he recalls telling his doctor about the experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe basically laughed at me,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe chuckled and said, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s just your frontal lobe shutting down that causes you to have this euphoric feeling and you hallucinate.\u2019 I told him that, no, this wasn\u2019t a hallucination, this wasn\u2019t a dream. \u2018It was as real as me standing here talking to you.\u2019 At that point I thought, I don\u2019t care what anyone tells me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While near-death experiences are common, so too is the reaction by Johnson\u2019s physician, said Deborah James, M.S.N, RN, CNS, CCRN-K, a clinical assistant professor in the School of Nursing and recognized expert in end-of-life care and near-death experiences.<\/p>\n<p>James, who in 2009 co-authored and co-edited the first compilation of research on the subject, <i>Handbook of Near-Death Experiences: Thirty Years of Investigation<\/i>, said one in three people who have a close brush with death report a near-death experience.<\/p>\n<p>And James is on a mission to make sure health care professionals, nurses in particular, know how to listen and respond when a patient recounts such a profound experience.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10210 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2016\/05\/NDE-pullquote-400px.gif\" alt=\"A near-death experience is more about the living than it is about dying\" width=\"400\" height=\"276\" \/>Over her decades-long career, most spent in intensive care units or other critical care settings, James has met and listened to dozens\u2014if not hundreds\u2014of near-death experiencers, or NDErs. All the stories are different, but there are many common threads.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson\u2019s story begins when he was kayaking with a friend on a swollen river. He was suddenly sucked into a pipe underneath a low-water crossing. Under water, he fought to pull himself out but couldn\u2019t. He was drowning, and soon lost consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>Still, he said, \u201cI felt like I knew where I was at, and I was in a good place. And I thought, I haven\u2019t been that great a person, but I felt like I was in heaven, in the presence of God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He sensed \u201ca multitude\u201d of souls around him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t see them but I felt a part of them. I knew they were there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then there was light, \u201clike looking into a kaleidoscope,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI wanted to get to the light, go to the light.\u201d He was at peace, surrounded by love. \u201cIt was beautiful. If I had stayed there, I would\u2019ve been fine with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But somehow the current swept Johnson through the pipe and deposited him downstream, where his friend pulled him to safety and resuscitated him.<\/p>\n<p>As with Johnson\u2019s experience, a common thread is the bright light at the end of a tunnel or hallway, and an extraordinary sense of love and serenity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not any laughing matter,\u201d James said. \u201cThis is not one of those things that people dream up. This is not a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Years ago, James said, a patient in ICU became irate after he was resuscitated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018I can\u2019t believe you people made me come back.\u2019 And everybody is like, \u2018We did our job. He must be confused.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not unusual, she said, for health care professionals and others to consider NDErs to simply be confused, disoriented or trying to get attention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat happens many times is those patients get medicated,\u201d James continued. \u201cHealth care providers will often order medications because they think the patient is psychotic. Often veterans are treated as if they\u2019re suffering from PTSD.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So it\u2019s normal for NDErs to be a bit leery of communicating the details of what happened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people think you\u2019re crazy,\u201d said Johnson, the near-drowning victim. \u201cAlmost immediately you develop a sense of who you can talk to about it and who you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And if a near-death experiencer is afraid to tell his story or it\u2019s casually dismissed, the person feels rejected, becomes more isolated, more apt to question the experience, and more prone to have self-doubts and fears. They may keep the experience bottled up inside for years.<\/p>\n<p>James, who teaches a variety of courses at the Health Science Center, introduces near-death experiences and the proper response from health care providers whenever she can: while talking about anything from end-of-life or palliative care and hospice to patients coming out of resuscitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs nurses,\u201d James said, \u201cwe should listen without judgment. You can tell the difference between someone who is confused and really struggling and someone who\u2019s had a near-death experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More and more health care professionals are responding positively, James said. So are students.<\/p>\n<p>Brittany Jasso, a nursing student who will graduate in May, said nurses should always be open to what near-death experiencers are saying.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou should ask them to tell you more, like, what did you see, what did you feel,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not there to minimize their feelings. I\u2019m not there to judge them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the skepticism of his doctor, Johnson continues to be enthusiastic about sharing his story, meeting others with similar experiences and seeking a deeper meaning as he gets on with life. And he thinks health care providers are crucial, especially in the beginning, in that search for meaning.<\/p>\n<p>After all, he said, \u201ca near-death experience is more about living than it is about dying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"info-box\">The International Association of Near-Death Studies local support group meets at 2 p.m. on the first Sunday of each month in the Health Science Center\u2019s School of Nursing, Room 1.230. The address is 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, 78229. Parking is free.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though common, near-death experiences are often discounted by health care professionals. One assistant professor is working to change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":10209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-springsummer-2016"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>And then there was light - Mission magazine | UT Health Science Center San Antonio<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magazines.uthscsa.edu\/mission-old\/and-then-there-was-light\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And then there was light - Mission magazine | UT Health Science Center San Antonio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Though common, near-death experiences are often discounted by health care professionals. 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